


First Impressions, Bitch

by Braxiatel_Collection



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, RuPaul's Drag Race (US) RPF
Genre: 1810s, F/F, I thought it was funny and started writing it and just didn't stop, I'm going a bit insane, Katya is Darcy, Regency, Slow Burn, They're gay and it's historical, Trixie is Elizabeth, What the hell even is this fic, You're allowed to tell me in the comments that I'm an insane piece of shit, enemies to lovers I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28836876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Braxiatel_Collection/pseuds/Braxiatel_Collection
Summary: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.Pride and Prejudice AU - don't ask me what I was thinking when I wrote this, because I don't know
Relationships: Jane Bennet/Charles Bingley, Trixie Mattel/Katya Zamolodchikova
Comments: 28
Kudos: 52





	1. An Arrival in Meryton

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, thanks for clicking on this stupid little fic! I don't know what the hell I was thinking but I'm having fun writing it and I hope you have fun reading it. A couple of notes before we get into it -
> 
> 1\. This isn't just Pride and Prejudice with characters' names changed. The story is the same and several iconic lines are kept in but mostly I rewrote it in my own style  
> 2\. You don't need to be familiar with P&P to enjoy this fic! I wrote it cos it's my favourite book and I'm obsessed with Regency fashion but it will still make sense if you don't know anything about P&P  
> 3\. There's heteronormativity, but no homophobia. That might sound like it makes no sense, but basically in essence it means while Trixie is assumed to want a husband, Trixie and Katya aren't persecuted for being together and are allowed to get married even though it's set in 1812  
> 4\. I was gonna rewrite all the other character's names to be other drag race girls but I felt it worked better if I kept them as they are. So I did! There we go!
> 
> Happy reading!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. 

\---

“Mr. Mattel! Mr. Mattel!” Mrs. Mattel flapped into the parlour towards her husband, who raised a weary eyebrow at the incoming storm. The five Mattel sisters, who were strewn around the room embroidering and mending bonnets, all subtly pricked up their ears.

“What is it, my dear? Unless you are announcing a death in the family or a royal visit to Meryton, I hardly think you need shout so loudly. Unless you wish for sailors in Timbuktu to hear this exciting news as well,” he remarked dryly. 

“Mr. Mattel, how you mock me so! This news may well be as incredible as a royal visit - the large manor Netherfield has been sold! Now, what do you think of that?” she proclaimed, yanking her ‘kerchief out of her dress front and dabbing it liberally around her face. After all, being messenger to such exciting news was heavy and exhaustive work. 

“The large manor, Mama?” Lydia Mattel, the youngest of the five Mattel girls, burst in on the conversation. Mr. Mattel rolled his eyes. In his experience, when the youngest (and, in his humble opinion, the silliest) of his daughters started in on the gossip with Mrs. Mattel, there was no stopping them. He exchanged a knowing glance with Beatrice, the second eldest sister, sitting opposite him reading a book. Her dark eyes sparkled and she bit back a smile.

“Indeed, child! And you know who occupies it?” Mrs. Mattel replied to Lydia, who sat in pure rapture at her mother’s feet. Lydia shook her head rapidly.

“Why, the Bingley family! One Mr. Bingley, his sister, his friend and a whole host of servants. I do believe they shall stay the whole summer. Mr. Bingley is single, and has over five thousand pounds a year!” she directed the last sentence meaningfully towards her husband. He idly turned a page in the newspaper. 

“Five thousand a year!” she repeated for dramatic effect. Mr. Mattel scratched behind his ear. 

“My dear Mrs. Mattel, if he earned five thousand a day I would still have little interest in the fellow. Why is he significant?”

“Oh, Mr. Mattel, you shall be the death of me. I of course mean he shall marry one of our girls! He shall surely take a fancy to one…” her voice trailed away as her sharp eyes passed over each of her daughters.

The eldest, Jane, was the true picture of beauty as she sat by the window plucking her needle serenely in and out of the embroidery hoop. The sun shone on her golden hair in a way that was most appealing, and of course her sweet and caring nature only added to her potential as a wife.

The next, Beatrice (though for some unknown reason she preferred to call herself by the rather vulgar name of Trixie), was close to Jane in looks, but in personality the complete opposite. Where Jane was trusting, Trixie was quick to judge. Where Jane was sweet, Trixie was sharp-tongued. But Trixie was smart and headstrong and passionate, qualities that matched the wild tumble of blonde hair that grew from her head, and Mr. Mattel would not have it any other way. It was clear Trixie was his favourite, they had always been as thick as thieves. 

Next was Mary, who sat by the piano plunking out a new melody. Mrs. Mattel winced subtly (or, at least, her approximation of subtly) and shook her head. She would have a tough business marrying off the pious Mary. 

The younger two, Kitty and Lydia, were in a corner arguing over whose bonnet was whose. Those two were practically joined at the hip and alike in almost every way - featherheaded, flouncy, and with a weakness for army officers. The only difference was Lydia had an eerie talent for making every man she set eyes on fall madly in love with her. Dear Lydia. Mrs. Mattel had a soft spot for her Lydia and always vowed to keep her out of trouble lest she start getting a reputation in Meryton. 

“Though, of course, Mr. Mattel, you must go and visit him. It would not be proper to introduce him to our girls if you do not visit him.” 

Mr. Mattel looked at her over the top of his newspaper and frowned. “Why on earth should I visit him? And what would I even say?”

“You could remark upon the weather, or ask him if he hunts, or offer for him to hunt in our grounds if he uses all his livestock. You must, Mr. Mattel, or we shall never meet him. You must go this very afternoon.”

Lydia and Kitty turned to their father. “Oh, you must, Papa. You must go right now.”

Mr. Mattel stood up and stretched, flinging his newspaper onto the divan. “I’m afraid I shall not visit him today, my dears.” 

Mrs. Mattel, Kitty and Lydia exploded into a cacophony of outrage. 

“Oh, papa! Whyever not?”  
“You must, Papa, you must! Trixie, tell him he must!”  
“Oh, Mr. Mattel! Why must you treat us this way!”

Mr. Mattel waited patiently for the outburst to come to an end.

“Because I heard of his arrival three days ago from the men in Meryton. I visited him last night.” And with that, he left the room. The room was silent for a moment as the women took in the news, before an even louder screech of noise descended upon the parlour.


	2. Dancing Is Most Agreeable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a real hefter - beware. Here we get to know all the characters better and meet our main love interests! Oooooh...
> 
> The rest of the chapters will probably be this long, so I hope that's ok. 
> 
> Happy reading!

Trixie’s cotton dress flapped wildly about her ankles as she set off down the lane. She loved her family dearly, of course she did, but they could get extremely tiresome from time to time. The weekly ball was happening in Meryton tonight, and it was rumoured in the village that Mr. Bingley and the party at Netherfield would be in attendance. Kitty, Lydia and Mrs. Mattel had been beside themselves - dashing about the house squealing about bonnets and fabrics and the latest hair styles. Trixie cared about her appearance, of course, but often she simply needed to leave the never-ending noise and take in the crisp, sweet air of the fields surrounding Meryton. 

Trixie started climbing the large hill behind their house, not caring about how dishevelled her hair was becoming or the good three inches of mud that had encrusted the bottom of her skirt. Climbing the hill was the only antidote for the swirling thoughts in her head, and today of all days she needed relief from the clamoring inside her brain. 

She wanted to marry for love. She knew she would never be able to utter such a bold sentence out loud in company, but deep down in her heart she knew she needed to marry someone who made her cheeks flush, who made her stomach flutter, who made her laugh in a way that was devastatingly unladylike. If she had been rich, or if she had had brothers, this whim wouldn’t have been so controversial, but once her father died the family would have nothing. By law, a father’s property was passed down to his next male relative - in most circumstances his son. But since her parents had no son, all the property was going to some cousin Trixie had never heard of, and Mrs. Mattel and all five of the girls would be left destitute. She desperately needed to marry someone rich who could provide for her and her sisters.  
It filled Trixie with an anger so profound she couldn’t bear it. She detested being reliant on another person, being such an independent woman, and it pained her beyond belief that she had to be married before her father died. Her mother was determined to find a good match for her, but she despised all the simpering toffs Mrs. Mattel attempted to set her up with. Her father, for all their understanding and jokes with each other, could do little more than shake his head sympathetically and tell her she was worth ten of every man Mrs. Mattel desired her to marry. 

Trixie reached the top of the hill, and let out a large frustrated breath she had been holding in. As she gazed over the rolling fields, with fresh grass glistening in the morning sun and trees serenely swaying in the Hartfordshire breeze, she felt the familiar ache of longing burn in the pit of her stomach. How she wished to freeze time, keep everything exactly as it was, and stay in this moment staring out at the freedom so tantalisingly promised by the fields. She knew her sister Jane, her best friend in all the world, would most likely be married soon - her pleasant countenance, her breathtaking looks, and her ineffable kindness made her the perfect wife. But, oh, she couldn’t bear to lose Jane to some man. Jane was her rock, her confidente, and Trixie couldn’t even think of a life apart from her.

A gust of wind blew gently against her face, and she closed her eyes and breathed in the sweet country air. Who knows what would happen if she married some rich fellow who had no interest in her as a person. Would she be shut up indoors all day long, hobbled by the burden of motherhood and needing to remain a respectable and patient little wife? Trixie’s heart belonged to these fields, and if she was ripped apart from them she knew she would wither up like a plant with no sunlight. 

A gentle melodic voice whipped through the breeze towards Trixie, and she opened one eye to inspect the intruder. Jane was climbing up the hill towards her, looking angelic in a simple white cotton gown. Trixie grinned and rushed down to pull Jane up the hill, then the two of them stood in comfortable silence overlooking the rolling fields, with only the birdsong and occasional braying of sheep in the next field breaking the quiet. 

\---

“Trixie, did you borrow my gloves? I simply can’t find them anywhere,” Lydia moaned, dashing in and out of Trixie and Jane’s room. Trixie laughed. 

“I did not borrow your gloves, Lydia. I daresay you forgot them at the last ball when you abandoned them on a table to dance with Colonel Fitzwillam,” Trixie remarked over her shoulder, and glanced into the mirror to see Lydia’s sour.

“Oh, blow it, you’re right. How on earth could I have been so careless?” Lydia stormed out of the room, her jabbering following her down the hall. Jane and Trixie, sitting next to each other at the dressing table, exchanged glances and burst into giggles at their younger sister’s forgetfulness. 

“Honestly, she’s bought a hundred pairs of gloves over the last year and left them all at various parties and friends’ houses. Before long she will buy out the entire glove stock in Meryton,” Jane remarked, peering in the mirror and patting her hair with a careful hand. “Now, Trixie, what do you think?” she turned to face her sister and Trixie could do little but gasp.

“Oh Jane, you’re breathtaking.” Trixie said. Jane’s golden hair was knotted into an intricate plait at the nape of her neck, with curls that she had painstakingly ragged the night before framing her face in a way that was most pleasing to the eye. Her pale green gown complimented her creamy skin perfectly, and the elegance of her body and mannerisms were so pleasant in their nature that Trixie wondered how on earth the two of them could be sisters - they were so unlike each other in so many respects. 

Jane grinned and hugged her knees. “Not as breathtaking as you, I believe,” she replied politely, and Trixie could barely stop herself from rolling her eyes.  
Trixie was very fond of the slightly odd way she looked, but after being subject to her mother’s moaning for years about how she could never have Jane’s natural beauty, she had come to believe that she seemed to have all the right ingredients, just in the wrong order. Her hair was a very handsome shade of gold, but it exploded from her head in an untamable cloud that the servants almost had to wrestle to make it curl into a bun.  
Her eyes were a smart, twinkling hazel, but they glimmered cheekily in a way that told anyone who talked to her of her mischievous nature.  
Her mouth was a pretty, delicate pink, but she had an awful (or, at least, she had been told by her mother and several governesses that it was awful) habit of grinning widely and screaming with laughter wherever a joke was told. 

“A lady should smile only slightly, and laugh pleasantly. To laugh like a man is most off-putting,” she had been told firmly throughout her childhood, but that only made her laugh louder and her grin wider. Trixie had never been one for following instructions. 

Kitty poked her head round the door.  
“Do hurry up, you two. We need to set off soon or we’ll be late. If we arrive after all the carriages have already dropped people off, the ground will be covered with horse droppings and I’ll absolutely ruin my new shoes,”

Trixie and Jane grinned at each other, linked arms, and chased Kitty all the way downstairs and into the carriage, chattering wildly and excitedly about the evening ahead. 

\---

Trixie felt the familiar twang of exciting shoot through her stomach as she pushed open the heavy wooden doors to the pub where the Meryton Ball was held every week. These balls were the highlight of her life - they were a chance to show off new dresses, to catch up on the gossip, to see all her old friends, and to admire other women. The doors opened, and the flood of light, warmth and clamouring chatter swallowed the girls up. Trixie grinned, and surrendered for the night. 

“Trixie! Hello, Trixie darling,” Trixie’s childhood best friend, Charlotte Lucas, pushed through the crowd and gave Trixie a quick hug around the waist. Charlotte and Trixie were firm friends as soon as they could toddle, and they were practically inseparable now. Charlotte was witty and quick and incredibly smart, though her plain face and appearance meant that it was hard for her mother to secure a good match. However many times Trixie tried to tell her she wasn’t, Charlotte constantly felt like a failure and a burden on her parents for still being single at the age of twenty and seven. 

“How are you, Charlotte?” asked Trixie, swiping a glass of wine from a nearby table and taking a swig. 

“Exhausted. My mother decided tonight would be the perfect opportunity for another lecture about finding a husband. I’m perpetually eyeing up every eligible man to see if they could possibly marry me and it’s so very tiring. I wish every man could disappear from the face of the planet and I’d be free to draw and write and read books in private,” Charlotte sighed, and Trixie nodded in pained solidarity. 

“It’s an occupational hazard of womanhood,” Trixie remarked. As Charlotte opened her mouth to add, the makeshift band started up a jaunty dancing tune, and the girls were compelled to the middle of the room. It was an agreement between the two of them that the conversations would never get in the way of dancing, and they grinned at each other as they took to the floor. 

Trixie adored dancing: the way glowing lights of the candles whirled round as she span, creating golden streaks past her eyes, the way her dress flowed about her ankles, the way her hair escaped its tightly wound bun and tickled the nape of her neck, the way all conceits and pretensions were forgotten when the entire village was dancing together - everyone was equal, and everyone had a place. 

Trixie and Charlotte danced together. Stranger things had happened in the village, and these days everyone looked upon it with a blind eye. When they had first danced together as teenagers, it had turned into quite the talking point and Mrs. Mattel had wheedled with everything she had to try and stop Trixie from dancing with Charlotte. But they stayed determined in their views, and eventually it was dismissed as the two girls having fun together. They were such very good friends, you see. 

The room had just finished its first dance, and participants were peeling off, breathless and dizzy, to find the nearest glass of wine, when the heavy wooden doors creaked open and an unknown party entered the room. The entire village turned and stared at the strangers, and soon the only noise in the room was the panting of dancers and the awkward ticks of the clock. Newcomers were a rarity and a spectacle in Meryton. People lived their whole lives there without leaving, and the families who lived in the village went back generations. The whole room was silent for a minute as the two opposing sides stared at each other. Sir William finally decided to break the silence and approach the group. 

“Mr. Bingley,” he said pleasantly, bowing down respectfully. To the surprise of the room, Mr. Bingley repeated the action.

“Good evening!” he cried, with such cheerfulness bleeding through in those two simple syllables it was impossible not to smile. He was tall, and wirey, and dressed impeccably, and (from what Trixie could see), meltingly handsome. Most of the younger women in the room were already giggling and blushing. The rest of the village stood silent and stone-faced, willing this strange rich man to say something snobbish and reveal that he thought himself miles above this dance and its inhabitants. 

“There’s nothing I love better than a country dance. I say… there isn’t any wine about, is there?” 

And with that, he had cracked through the tough exterior of the village and been welcomed inside. The hall was once again filled with bustle and mirth, with men coming forward to offer the party drinks and invitations for a dance. Mrs. Mattel and a handful of other mothers rushed forward to introduce themselves, while Trixie hovered about the sidelines, analysing the group with discriminating eyes. 

From what she could see, there was a man and two ladies, all dressed like they had just strolled out of the King’s quarters at Buckingham Palace. Mr. Bingley stood at the head of the group, smiling away and laughing along with all the women who came up and introduced themselves. Trixie decided she liked him immensely. There was nothing better than a man who threw himself into the spirit of a party.  
She next observed a woman who must be his sister, for they looked so similar with curled dark hair and twinkling grey eyes. The main difference, however, was that Mr. Bingley’s eyes twinkled with mirth and pleasantries. This woman’s eyes glittered a little too spitefully for Trixie to trust her. Her gown was an opulent pink silk that probably cost enough to feed a family of five for several months, all over draped with laces and embroideries and fripperies. Trixie secretly longed for a dress so beautiful, and while she dreamt of a bright blue gown and a feather in her hair, her eyes drifted to the third woman.

The woman was dressed, most curiously, like a man. She wore a green waistcoat and linen shirt underneath, complete with a cravat and cane. She was, Trixie observed, wearing a skirt, but it seemed more of a formality than an actual desire to appear feminine. While Trixie’s eyes lingered on her clothes for longer than was polite, they flitted up to the woman’s face. Her hair was an astonishing shade of shimmering silvery blonde that seemed to luminate the entire room. Her face was fixed in a mask of snobbish indifference to the entire scene, and her bright blue eyes were downcast as if to send a message that she was above this entire village. 

A flare of anger crackled inside Trixie. How dare this woman swan into their hall and act as if she was too good for it? At least pretend to enjoy it. Or perhaps she was too stinking rich to even believe these people were worthy of a smile. Trixie snorted in irritation, then turned her face away from the woman. She wasn’t going to let her mood be tainted by some wealthy lady who believed she was better. She made her way onto the floor to have another dance, but her mother’s familiar iron-like grip closed around her wrist, and she was whisked off in the opposite direction.

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Sir. I believe my husband, Mr. Mattel, called in on you last week,” Mrs. Mattel said in her most refined voice, dropping low into a deep bow. Trixie laughed internally at her mother’s simperings. 

“So lovely to meet you,” Bingley replied, returning the gesture. “Yes, of course, I remember him well. Said you had five daughters?” 

“I do, indeed, Sir. These are my youngest, Lydia and Kitty-” she gestured towards the two of them and they bobbed at him, giggling. He grinned back, and they burst into peals of laughter, then ran off to tease the militia. Mrs. Mattel glared at them for their rudeness, then straightened her face into a bright smile for Mr. Bingley.

“Do excuse them, Sir. Lydia is not yet sixteen, and still a little excited to be allowed to the balls,” Mr. Bingley waved away her apology.

“Not at all, Madame. The folly of youth, I remember it well. Charming, quite charming.”

“This is Mary, my next eldest. She hopes to play the pianoforte tonight,” Mary smiled weakly and curtsied, grasping her music tightly to her chest. 

“I do hope to hear you, Mary. I must say, the pianoforte is one of my favourite pastimes. Absolutely splendid.” He replied charmingly. Trixie marvelled at his ability to stay so cheerful in the face of being introduced to so many people. She would have surely slunk off by now, had she been in that position. 

“And this is Miss Beatrice, my oldest but one,” Trixie dropped into a deep bow, eager to make a good first impression. She liked Mr. Bingley enormously and hoped to make a good acquaintance of him. He smiled courteously, but she could see his eyes were drawn towards Jane and her glowing beauty. She felt so happy for Jane - she deserved a man so cheerful and polite as Bingley. 

“And this is Miss Jane Mattel, my oldest daughter,” Mrs. Mattel announced with bursting pride, already noticing how his eyes flickered up and down Jane with awe and nudging Trixie with what she thought was subtlety. 

“A pleasure to meet you,” Jane said softly, offering him a delicate hand. He kissed it with rapture, smiling all the while. 

“Most returned. What fine daughters you have, Mrs. Mattel. I think if I had just one daughter so well brought-up I should be happy. Most invigorating, most pleasant, most… every single thing! A true privilege to meet you all. I say, Miss Jane… you wouldn’t happen to have the next dance free?” Trixie felt Jane stir next to her, and she gave her arm a reassuring squeeze.

“I would, Mr. Bingley. It would be of great pleasure to dance the next set with you,” Jane replied prettily, and Mr. Bingley smiled with such raptitude Trixie was sure his face would break in half. The two stared at each other, before Mr. Bingley shook his head and broke out of his trance.

“Allow me to introduce the rest of my party. My sister, Miss Caroline Bingley,” he spread a hand towards his sister and she came forward, bobbing prettily and smiling in a way that Trixie could not quite pinpoint. Was it smugness upon her face? Or jealousy?

“And my very good friend, Miss Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova. But we all call her Miss Zamo.” Now there was a name rarely heard in these parts. So she was foreign, perhaps that explained her less than pleasant facial expressions and eccentric clothing. She bobbed down quickly, eyes darting rapidly round the room as if she would rather be anywhere else in the world. Trixie took that as rudeness, and her smiled curdled in response.

“Well, Miss Zamo, what a name! Is it perhaps French?” Mrs. Mattel inquired. 

“No.” came the curt reply. Trixie blinked, taken aback. Is that all she could bother to say?  
Mr. Bingley burst in, sensing the party had taken offence in his friend’s off-handedness.

“Miss Zamo’s family is Russian by origin, Madame. Her parents travelled to England during the Austrian-Turkish War and she was born here. Weren’t you, Katya?” Miss Zamo simply nodded in agreement. 

“Goodness, how exotic! We’ve had no Russians pass through Hertfordshire before. I daresay you are the first, Miss Zamo,” Mrs. Mattel said conversationally. Miss Zamo looked through her as if she didn’t exist. 

“How thrilling,” she muttered monotonously, and Trixie felt a spark of indignation ignite in her stomach. She knew her mother could be overbearing and a little indecent, but it was a basic rule of polite society to at least try and engage in conversation. Trixie let her emotions overtake her, and she felt a need to test this strange woman.

“Do you dance, Miss Zamo?” she asked politely. 

“Not if I can help it.” Miss Zamo replied, and with that Trixie lost interest. Why should she bother to engage with someone who quite obviously thought this whole affair was beneath her. She turned to catch Charlotte’s arm and drag her to the corner of the room, to divulge all she had heard. 

\--- 

“Ten thousand a year!” Trixie repeated in astonishment. Charlotte Lucas nodded, her eyes wide. Trixie stood a moment, contemplating Miss Zamo’s fortune. It all seemed to make sense now. 

“At least! Mama told me. Imagine having ten thousand a year! One could do anything, I expect. Anything one pleased…” 

“Except dance.” Trixie remarked sarcastically. 

“She is wonderfully handsome, isn’t she, Trixie. Beneath it all.” 

“I wonder if she’d be not quite so handsome if she were not so rich,” Trixie said off-handedly, watching Jane and Mr. Bingley dance. They seemed quite enraptured with each other, and Trixie was pleased beyond belief. The dance finished and there was much cheering and clapping, and Mr. Bingley went to stand by Miss Zamo. Charlotte and Trixie looked at each other cheekily, and strained to hear their conversation. 

“I really must have you dance, Katya. I can’t have you standing around in this stupid manner.” Bingley said fondly.

“I most certainly shall not.” Miss Zamo replied waspishly. “At this assembly? It would be insupportable.” Trixie and Charlotte stared at each other, quite bewildered by her rudeness. 

“Good God, Katya, I wouldn’t be as fastidious as you for a kingdom. Do you know I’ve never seen so many pleasant girls in my life. Several of them are uncommonly pretty,” he said, gazing longingly at Jane.

“You have been dancing with the only pretty girl in the room. All the rest I have little but contempt for.” Miss Zamo claimed, and Trixie snorted with derision.

“Katya, she is the most beautiful creature I ever laid eyes on. But what of her sisters? Miss Beatrice is exceedingly fine too,” he said, and Trixie and Charlotte looked at each other with silent laughter hanging on their lips.

“She is tolerable, I suppose. But not handsome enough to tempt me. Bingley, I’m in no humour to play this game you shall have me perform. All these women have little consequence in life and are therefore worthy of little attention. Go back to your partner and enjoy her smiles. You’re wasting your time with me.” Miss Zamo finished stonily, and went back to staring coldly around the room. Bingley, defeated, clapped her on the shoulder and walked back to Jane. 

Though she couldn’t dare admit it, Trixie’s heart dropped a little. Charlotte leaned her head on Trixie’s shoulder. 

“Count your blessings, Trixie. If she liked you, you'd have to talk to her.”

Trixie laughed a little, though perhaps more subdued than normal.

“Precisely. Look, Jane’s just finished her set. Shall we talk to her?”

They stood up gracefully and swanned purposefully past Miss Zamo. And though she would never mention it again, Trixie could have sworn she noticed Miss Zamo’s piercing blue eyes boring into her back as she walked away. 

\---

Towards the end of the evening, most of the guests had tottered home or were scattered about the room playing cards or drinking. Mr. Bingley, Miss Zamo, Trixie, Jane and Mrs. Mattel sat in a corner discussing everything and anything that came into their minds, unwilling to say goodbye to the night and go home. 

“I could never have dreamt that Hertfordshire ladies would be so agreeable. And so beautiful, of course!” Mr. Bingley said, raising his goblet to Jane and Trixie. 

“Miss Jane is considered the beauty of the county, would you not agree, Sir?” said Mrs. Mattel, nudging Jane until she flushed a deep pink. Mr. Bingley nodded and drank in agreement.  
“When she was fifteen, she had a man quite in love with her, I was so sure he would make an offer!”

“Mama…” Jane said exasperatingly. But when Mrs. Mattel got on the wine there was little stopping the torrent of words that were constantly flowing from her lips.

“But her only wrote her some pretty verses-”

“- and that put paid to it!” Trixie interrupted, as she observed Jane becoming more and more embarrassed with each word Mrs. Mattel spoke. “I wonder who first discovered the power of poetry in driving away love,” she said off-handedly, as a means to lightly end the conversation and spare poor Jane’s humiliation. 

However, before she could introduce another topic, a most unexpected speaker chimed in.

“I thought poetry was the food of love?” Miss Zamo said. Their eyes connected. 

“Of a fine, stout love, it may. But if it is only a vague inclination I’m sure one poor sonnet will kill it stone dead.” Trixie rebuffed, reaching for a goblet of wine. 

“So what would you recommend to encourage affection, Miss Mattel?” Miss Zamo asked. Trixie paused with her goblet halfway to her lips. Her eyes locked with Miss Zamo’s.

“Dancing,” she said. “Even if one’s partner is barely tolerable.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks all! Happy Monday!


	3. Horseback?!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading and commenting, guys! I thought I'd have these chapters out much faster, but it turns out that writing these huge long chapters takes ages! I hope they're worth it. 
> 
> Thanks so much, and happy reading!

The next day, all anyone could talk about was the night before. Mrs. Mattel waltzed around the parlour, swishing a blue silk handkerchief and sighing wistfully. 

“And you know he danced with Jane four times! He danced with Miss Beatrice twice, and Charlotte Lucas once, but Miss Jane four whole dances! Why, even you did not dance with me four times before we were married, Mr. Mattel. The sister danced with several men, and the friend with no one at all, but did I mention that Mr. Bingley danced with Jane-”

“Indeed, my dear, I cannot recall how many times Mr. Bingley danced with Jane last night, could you repeat it?”

“Oh, Mr. Mattel, how you mock me so! With no regard for my countenance or my poor, poor nerves.”

“My dear, I have the highest regard for your nerves, having been firm companion to them these past thirty years. If anyone in England had a regard for your nerves it would be I…”

The sound of their parents’ fond bickering floated through into the open French windows and out into the garden, where Jane and Trixie were picking flowers in the weak autumn sun. They smiled at each other at the familiar sound of their father’s gentle teasing. 

“Mr. Bingley really is what an young man ought to be,” remarked Jane, snipping a stalk of rosemary free and placing it in her wicker basket. “Sensible, good-humoured-”

“-handsome, conveniently rich…” Trixie added lightly. Jane poked her with her gardening shears. 

“You know perfectly well I do not believe marriage should be driven by money,”

“I agree entirely!” Trixie reassured her. “Only the deepest love will persuade me into matrimony. Which is why I shall end up an old maid.”

Jane suddenly dropped her basket and grasped her sisters’ hands with her own cold pair.  
“Do you really believe he liked me, Trixie?” she asked intensely. Trixie stroked her hair. 

“Jane, he danced with you for most of the night and stared at you for the rest. He could not have cared less for any other young woman in the vicinity. But you’re too apt to like people, in general. All the world is good and agreeable in your eyes.”

“Not his friend,” replied Jane, retrieving her flower basket and continuing her task. “Oh, I still can’t believe what she said about you.”

“Miss Zamo…” Trixie said, staring into the distance. “I could more easily forgive her vanity had she not wounded mine.” She laughed and shook herself out of the faraway place she travelled to. “But no matter. I doubt we shall ever speak again.”

The girls contented themselves with their tasks for a few moments more until a black horse thundered down the lane towards Longbourn. They took little notice of it, it was simply the mid-morning post, until the housekeeper, Hill, hurried towards them with a letter.

“Begging your pardon, Miss Jane and Miss Beatrice, but there’s a letter for Miss Jane here. The seal on the back says it’s from Netherfield.”

Jane turned white and accepted the proffered letter with trembling fingers. Trixie’s eyes turned huge and round, and she rushed to the open windows to call for her mother. Mrs. Mattel raced to Jane’s side and hugged her as hard as she could, with Jane still fixated on the letter. 

“Well? Open it girl, where are your senses?” Mrs. Mattel urged. Jane took a shaky breath and gently pulled back the wax seal, unfolding the sheafs of paper and peering at the rows of tiny neat handwriting. 

“It’s from Caroline Bingley,” she said breathlessly. Kitty and Lydia had since joined the small huddle, and the group of women all gasped collectively at that proclamation. 

“She wishes for me to dine at Netherfield. Today!” Jane clamped a hand over her mouth and raised her eyes upwards - Trixie could read her face like a book, and saw that her sister was in pure bliss. Jane read on, and her face fell a little. 

“Her brother will be dining out,” she read aloud, and Mrs. Mattel snatched the letter from her daughter’s hand. 

“Dining out? That makes little sense!” she puzzled. Jane seemed less disappointed. 

“May I take the carriage, Mama?” she asked. Mrs. Mattel didn’t seem to hear her, only carried on puzzling over the letter.

“This is unaccountable of him. Dining out?” she continued.

“It is too far to walk, Mama…” Jane attempted to plead, with little effect. 

“I cannot fathom it. Did last night mean nothing to him?” Trixie lost patience. 

“Mama!” she said loudly, nudging her mother’s arm. “The carriage, for Jane?”

Mrs. Mattel finally looked up, her face set. 

“Certainly not. She must go on horseback.” There was a pause, and then an outcry.

“Horseback?!”

\---

Trixie dashed into the house, trying to smooth her hair and her gown uselessly again the torrent of rain that soaked it. By the time she managed to race through the door, the intricate hairstyle was sodden and her dress quite ruined from mud and rain. She huffed in irritation and threw her bonnet on the floor. 

Mr. Mattel passed her a linen towel as he was passing the front door and went on to stand by Mrs. Mattel, who gazed intently out of the window. 

“Now she shall have to stay the night, as I predicted,” Mrs. Mattel remarked, trying not to look pleased with herself. Trixie could do little but laugh at her mother’s evil genius.

“Good grief, Mrs. Mattel. I have never known matchmaking skills like yours, which are so artful they must be occult in nature.” Mr. Mattel replied. 

“Though I don’t think, Mama, you could claim credit for making it rain,” Trixie added playfully, drying her hair.  
\---

Breakfast next morning was a rather sordid affair. Trixie so rarely spent a night without Jane in bed beside her, and it made the whole room seem dark and rather lonely. She had slept badly, and yawned all the way through Grace.

As the family ate, one of the servants brought in a letter on a silver platter in Jane’s familiar round hand. Trixie snatched it up quickly and devoured the words hungrily. Her sisters asked what the purpose of the letter was in high-pitched, persistent mews until Trixie dropped it down on the table and sat back in her chair.

“Jane is taken ill,” she announced, and noted the look of satisfaction that appeared on her mother’s face. “She writes ‘my kind friends will not hear of me returning home until I am better. Do not be alarmed: except in a sore throat, a fever and a headache there is nothing much wrong with me.’”

Trixie looked up in vague bemusement. “This is ridiculous,” she said, as her sisters giggled in delight. 

Mr. Mattel dabbed around his lips with a napkin and placed his cutlery down. “Well, if Jane does die, it will be in comfort to know it was in pursuit of Mr. Bingley,” 

“People do not die of colds,” Mrs. Mattel dismissed with a wave of her hand. 

“Though she may well perish with the shame of having such a mother.” Trixie said, playing with her food. Mrs. Mattel looked at her sternly, trying to gage if she said it in jest or in seriousness. 

“I must go to Netherfield at once,” Trixie continued, scraping her chair back and leaving her breakfast abandoned. 

\--- 

The walk from Longbourne to Meryton would have been really quite pleasant, had it not been for the intrusive thoughts constantly filling her head about all the bad things that could happen to Jane. The sky had evened out to a dark, moody, steel grey, and the countryside was abandoned. So Trixie spread her arms wide, and hopped and skipped and sang all the way to the manor, her voice challenging the talkative birds in the trees for the most impressive noise all around. 

Netherfield was simply outstanding. It was breathtaking, it was sublime, it was all the other words Trixie could not think of in the moment that she stood staring at the majesty of the house. She had seen manor halls before, but only when their occupants were out and there was only a lonely old housekeeper to tour parties around. It was really something different to see one alive: smoke billowing from the chimneys, servants rushing around like ants, the tinkling of voices coming from within. 

She decided then and there to not be outclassed by the house or its occupants, so she nodded politely at the servants as they showed her in, a playful performance of regality and refinement that contrasted highly with her dishevelled hair and cotton dress encrusted with at least three inches of mud. As she was ushered into the dining room, she saw Miss Caroline Bingley having breakfast, as was to be expected, and, most peculiarly, Miss Zamo. 

Miss Zamo seemed as bewildered as she was to see her standing there, and stood up immediately, the painful noise of her chair scraping enough to make anyone wince.

Trixie thankfully remembered to bow politely without allowing her shock to register on her face, but couldn’t think of a single word to say after she had greeted the pair. 

“I say, did you walk here, Miss Mattel?” Miss Bingley exclaimed. Trixie smiled a little.

“I did. I find walking to be a most pleasant activity.” Then silence descended upon the room. Trixie could bear it no longer. 

“I’m so sorry, how is my sister?” she burst out. 

“She’s upstairs,” Miss Zamo replied. Trixie was a little caught out. 

“Thank you,” she managed to say, before she hurriedly peeled off. 

A servant led her up the seemingly endless flights of stairs before showing her in to one of the doors on the enormous landing. Trixie thought that if she had a house as grand as this, she would never learn her way around. She would have to keep a map about her person at all times. She was just beginning to think how one could possibly manage to have a map with them at all times when a familiar voice cut through her thoughts.

“Trixie! You came all this way for me!” Jane sat up in bed, a little weaker and paler than usual, but for the most part looking reassuringly normal. Trixie rushed to her side and threw her arms around her sister’s neck.

“I feel such a terrible imposition. They’re being so kind to me,” Jane said, sniffling a little and coughing weakly. Trixie stroked her soft hair. 

“Don’t worry. I don’t know who is more pleased at your being here: Mama or Mr. Bingley.” The two laughed a little at that, until a gentle knock at the door interrupted them. Mr. Bingley poked his head round the door, and the sisters ushered him in. 

“Thank you for tending to my sister so diligently. She is in far better comfort here than she would be at home.”

Mr. Bingley nodded shyly. “It’s a pleasure. A pure pleasure. I mean, it’s… sorry, not a pleasure that she’s ill, but a pleasure that she’s ill… here. Anyway, I shall leave you two. I just wished to see… never mind. I shall leave you two. Oh, and Miss Beatrice? You’re more than welcome to stay for tea. Stay the rest of the day, I insist.”

Trixie smiled brightly at him. “You are so very kind, Sir. Now it seems we are so well acquainted you must call me Miss Trixie, if you wish.”

“Miss Trixie, of course. I shall see you later,” he ducked out of the room, pouring sweet smiles and waves upon the two of them until they both positively melted when he was outside and the door safely shut. 

\---

Later that evening, Trixie sat with the group downstairs after tea. Miss Bingley paced around the room, and it half put Trixie in mind of a tiger in a circus prowling round its cage. 

“You write uncommonly fast, Miss Zamo,” she remarked. Miss Zamo looked up from the letter she was writing. 

“You’re mistaken. I write rather slowly.” she replied. Trixie wondered silently if she would ever hear more than ten syllables come out of Miss Zamo’s mouth in a single sentence, or if she was cursed to only speak in short, terse replies. 

“Do give your sister my regards, Miss Zamo.” Miss Bingley said, and Trixie looked up from her book. A sister? Proud, stiff Miss Zamo has a sister she writes to?

“Indeed I did the last time I wrote, Madame. I would ask you to defer your affections until the next letter, I hardly have space to do them justice now,” Miss Zamo replied, and Trixie stifled a small snort of laughter at the droll comment. 

Mr. Bingley and two old gentlemen friends of his who came round for tea sat playing cards in the corner of the room, creating a most merry atmosphere that Trixie would have been entirely comfortable in had it not been for Miss Zamo’s confusing nature and Miss Bingley’s incessant wondering. 

“Miss Trixie, do take a turn with me around the room. It is really quite refreshing.” Miss Bingley proffered her arm, and after a moment’s hesitation Trixie snapped her book shut and took it, joining Miss Bingley in her strange dance. 

“Would you not walk with us, Miss Zamo?” Miss Bingley asked tantalisingly, and suddenly a realisation began to dawn on Trixie. 

“That would defeat the object,” she replied lightly. Miss Bingley stopped. 

“The object? Whatever do you mean?” Miss Bingley asked. “What do you suppose she means, Miss Trixie?” 

Trixie gently pulled Miss Bingley’s arm in the opposite direction. “I think we would do better not to enquire, Madame.”

Miss Bingley turned impetuously. “I demand we know your meaning, Zamo,” she exclaimed, and Miss Zamo at last set aside her letter.  
“Why, that your figures appear at their best advantage when walking, and from my current position I can best admire them,” she replied with a straight face, and before Trixie could help herself, her cackle of laughter burst out, drawing the attention of the whole room. She was just so shocked that Miss Zamo was actually capable of making jokes, and in such a taciturn manner about her own sex, as well! The woman was a perpetual mystery. 

She slapped a hand to her mouth before any more bizarre screams of laughter could emerge, but the group already seemed bewildered at the noise issued from her lips. Miss Bingley raised her eyebrows, but thankfully seemed to ignore it.

“What an abominable answer! How shall we punish her, Miss Trixie?” she asked, taking Trixie by the arm again.

“Nothing so easy, surely. Tease her. Laugh at her,” Trixie felt a little more comfortable ribbing Miss Zamo now she knew she wasn’t (entirely) made of wood. 

“Laugh at her?” questioned Miss Bingley. “Laugh at Miss Zamo? Impossible! She is a woman without fault.”  
She went to sit beside Miss Zamo, swishing her lace handkerchief, and Trixie was left to stand by the fireplace, opposite Miss Zamo. 

“Is she indeed?” Trixie decided to probe further, all her inhibitions left behind. “A woman without fault…”  
She of course believed no such presumptuous claim, considering all the ‘faults’ she had seen displayed throughout her previous meetings with the woman. 

Miss Zamo seemed to bristle. “That is not possible for anyone. But it has been my study to avoid those weaknesses that expose a strong understanding for ridicule.”

Trixie sucked in her lips a little. This woman, preach to her about ridicule? “Such as… say, vanity? And pride, I suppose.”

Miss Zamo blinked. “Yes. Vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride? Where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will always be under regulation. I have faults enough, Miss Mattel, but I hope they're not of understanding. My temper I cannot vouch for,” she suddenly looked away. “It might be called resentful. My good opinion, once lost, is lost forever.”

Trixie adopted a pained expression. “That is a failing indeed.” she paused, and talked from a place of sincerity once more. “But I cannot laugh at it.”

Miss Zamo seemed resentful at this attempt of Trixie’s to analyse her, and she once again prickled. “I believe every disposition has some tendency to evil.” 

Trixie had to laugh a little at this. “Your defect is a tendency to hate everyone,” she declared wildly, and watched Miss Zamo’s jaw set. She believed she had finished the conversation, and picked up her book once more.

“Well, yours is to misunderstand them.”  
Trixie turned and saw a glimmer in the blue eyes that locked with hers, and against her will felt a flare in the pit of her stomach. Suddenly a burst of noise exploded from the men playing cards, and the room was once again bustling with laughter and music and chatter. However hard Trixie attempted to join in and lose herself, she found her head constantly turning and sneaking glances at Miss Zamo. And she would have paid all of her future salary to bet that Miss Zamo was doing the same.

\---

“You will give your family my regards, won’t you?” Bingley asked eagerly as he helped Jane and Trixie into the carriage. 

“I shall, Mr. Bingley. I shall tell them the second I step through the door,” Jane replied.

“And you shall come again to stay soon, won’t you? Hopefully a time when you are less… ill. So we can enjoy your fine company to the height of its extent.”

“I would like very much to do so,” Jane smiled back. Mr. Bingley practically had his face pressed to the window of the carriage, and it took Trixie’s polite little cough to remind Jane and Bingley of her existence. 

“Yes! Well! I shall hope to see you soon. We all do. Goodbye!” 

The carriage drew away slickly, and he stood waving until they were but a speck in the distance.

\--- 

“How nice it is to have one’s home back to oneself again,” Caroline remarked haughtily as Bingley staggered back inside and collapsed into a chair by the fire. Katya offered him a reassuring clap on the back which he accepted with a weak smile. 

“I am quite enamoured, Katya,” he said helplessly. 

“I’m aware.” she replied simply and amusedly. Caroline Bingley continued her stroll. 

“There’s no denying that Jane Mattel is a beauty and a charm. But her sister? I found her vulgar to the extreme, almost unpleasant in polite society. I shall never forget that dress when she came in. Three inches of mud?! She looked positively Medieval. Goodness - that laugh! So unbecoming of a young woman. Have you ever heard a woman scream like that, Charles? She would never get away with that in London. And there are no real redeeming qualities of her face. Her hair is far too fly-away and untamable to be pretty. Her mouth is fine, I suppose, though her teeth are crooked, and her eyes have nothing special to them. Rather dull shade of brown, I believe.” Caroline claimed.  
Usually in these moments, Katya sat back and let her continue her rants, but today something inside her spurred and she opened her mouth to reply. 

“I’m rather afraid I disagree with you, Miss Bingley.” she said, and Caroline turned, her eagle eyes taunting. 

“Oh really? To which part of my analysis do you object?”

“Her eyes. Her eyes aren’t dull or uninteresting. I believe she has exceedingly fine and pretty eyes.” 

And with that she snapped her book shut, stood up stiffly, and left the room.


	4. A Defect In One's Character

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! This is your reminder to stretch your legs, take a shower, drink some water, get a snack, do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself today. You matter, and I'm so, so proud of you. <3
> 
> Enjoy the chapter, my loves! Xoxo

“I have received a letter,” Mr. Mattel proclaimed over breakfast one morning, several days after Jane and Trixie stayed at Netherfield. Their father being the recipient of a letter seemed of little consequence to his daughters, who chattered and squealed the same as always over breakfast. 

“Very soon, we shall expect a visitor who shall stay with us for at least a week, he expects,”  
This, at last, was enough to pique his daughters’ interests, and earn the panicked scoldings of his wife. 

“How soon?! Mr. Mattel, nothing is prepared! The spare room is not made up, we have no feasts ordered. Why must you vex me so with this confusing behaviour you insist on upholding?” Mrs. Mattel huffed out all of these concerns in what seemed to be one breath then sat back in her chair, toying with a piece of toast. 

Jane fondly shook her head at Mrs. Mattel. “Who is to stay, Papa?” she asked her father politely. Lydia squealed. The militia had come to stay at Meryton over the winter, and it seemed Lydia and Kitty’s excitement now had no threshold, much to the irritation of Mr. Mattel.

“Oh, I know who it is!” exclaimed Lydia wildly. “It’s Colonel Forster and his wife!” Kitty seemed equally entranced by her silly game, and joined in. 

“It’s Denny!” she giggled. Denny was a young recruit to the army and a fast friend of Lydia and Kitty. 

“It’s the entire regiment, and we are to knit them bandages and play cards with them all night long!” Lydia and Kitty chortled with over-excited headiness, until a stern and exasperated look from their father quietened them down, and they went back to their sardines. 

“It is my cousin,” Mr. Mattel revealed at last, and his youngest two daughters deflated with disappointment. 

“His name is Mr. Collins, and you may all know him well as the man who is to inherit Longbourn after I am dead. He may turf you all out into the street as soon as he wishes after my passing,”  
Mrs. Mattel whimpered dramatically and placed her handkerchief to her forehead. After looking up at her sternly over the rim of his spectacles, Mr. Mattel continued. 

“He is recently qualified as a clergyman, and wishes to heal the rift created by our quarrelling fathers many years ago. He writes: ‘as a man of the Church, I feel it my duty to promote and establish the blessing and peace of all families within the reach of my influence. On these grounds, I flatter myself that my initiations of goodwill are highly commendable, and would not lead you to reject the offered olive branch.’”

Lydia snorted. “What a presumptuous man he sounds. ‘I flatter myself that my initiations of goodwill are highly commendable?!’ A pompous, obsequious man. Why on earth should he come here? I should wish nothing to do with him.” she finished stubbornly, and Kitty folded her arms likewise in minute rebellion. 

“My dear, it is little concern of mine, as I shall be dead, but I would advise it within your best wishes to appease him.”

Mrs. Mattel tapped Lydia on the arm. “You heard your father! It is perhaps fortune that made him decide to call a visit here. Perhaps he shall marry one of my girls and we shall all be saved from starving in the hedgerows.”

The universal chorus of disgust from around the table was almost loud enough to reach a different country, falling upon the deaf ears of the girl’s parents.

Mr. Mattel simply smiled and cracked open the top of his boiled egg. 

“He arrives today, at four o’clock.”

\---

The family tumbled outside in the grey afternoon light as the promised carriage trundled up the drive. The girls could scarcely hold in their excitement, and Trixie was equally amused to see what games she could play with this man. 

“He must be an oddity, surely,” she found herself remarking. 

“We shall hear no more ill-speaking of Mr. Collins,” snapped Mrs. Mattel. “If he’s disposed to make amendments to any of my girls, I shan’t be the person to discourage him.”

“Could he be a sensible man, sir?” she asked Mr. Mattel. The two of them smirked at each other in a way that no one else could understand.

“Oh, I think not, my dear. In fact, I have great hopes in finding him quite the reverse.” he said, as the carriage drew to the front door.

“Mr. Collins!” Mr. Mattel went forward. “You are most welcome.”

A short man with a most unplaceable facial expression emerged from the carriage. His hair clung slickly to his forehead underneath his flat clergyman’s hat, and his face twisted into a sort of grimace that Trixie presumed was an attempt at a smile. 

“My dear Mr. and Mrs. Mattel.” He swept into a deep bow, lingering for rather too long, and when he rose up again Trixie saw his face was quite red. She would have taken pity on him and given him the benefit of the doubt had she not followed his eyeline and found it resting on Jane’s upper body. She coughed a little and flapped her handkerchief. 

\---

“I must say, Mr. Collins,” Mr. Mattel said over dinner that night. “How you are certainly most… privileged in your patronage.”

Mr Collins, who sat next to Trixie, seemed to come to life at the mention of this. He jerked his arms wide open as if giving a sermon, knocking Trixie’s spoon into her soup and splashing it all over her gown. He hardly seemed to notice. 

“Lady Catherine de Bourgh.” he exclaimed greasily. “Indeed I am, sir. I have been treated with such grace and condescension as I had never dared to hope for. I have been invited twice to dine at Rosings Park, where she resides - and indeed I have heard it said that the manor is not only the finest in all the county, but all of England. And sir, I have to confirm these rumours to be true. Why, the drawing room is twice the size of the downstairs of this house alone!”

“Is that so? Amazing,” Mr. Mattel said, dripping with a sarcasm only Trixie could recognise. She stifled a laugh as she cleaned her spoon on her napkin.

Mrs. Mattel noticed the humours between the two, and raised a firm eyebrow. “I heard she was a widow, sir. Does she have any family?”

“She has one son, though I must admit he is frail and a little sickly. He is heir to the entire Rosings fortune, quite a considerable inheritance. He has not, unfortunately, been presented at court, for his constitution confines him from being in town. And, as I remarked to Lady Catherine herself, that deprives the British court of one of its brightest ornaments!”  
He leaned across the table to Mr. Mattel. “You may imagine how happy I am to offer these little delicate compliments, which are always acceptable to ladies!”

He turned towards Trixie and Jane, and wiggled his eyebrows. Trixie clamped her napkin to her mouth to trap in any extremely unladylike noises that were at risk of escaping. Mr. Mattel took great pleasure in her amusement, and carried on:

“That is fortunate for you, Mr. Collins, that you possess such an extraordinary talent for flattering with such delicacy.”  
He scanned his eyes around the table at his daughters: Trixie was on the verge of tears from holding back her laughter for so long, and she seemed to have stuffed the entire napkin into her mouth, her shoulders shaking. Jane’s face was an apparent mask of curiosity for Mr. Collins’ words, though Mr. Mattel could tell deep down she would be rolling on the floor giggling with Trixie if polite society would allow it. Kitty and Lydia made no attempts to conceal their contempt for the man, and sat glowering and huffing at him, Mrs. Mattel’s calming hand rested on Lydia’s to prevent her from saying anything. Mr. Mattel could not give up so easily. 

“May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, are they the results of previous study?” 

Trixie’s napkin flew out of her mouth; she let out a burst of laughter so violent she blew out the candle opposite her. She managed to retrieve the moment by feigning a sudden bout of coughing, and while Mr. Collins patted her on the back, her and her father’s eyes connected with mirth. 

\---

The next afternoon was a pleasant one, and the family spent the day outside, taking advantage of the last few snatches of sunshine before it slid away for the winter. Kitty and Lydia played Hoops, flinging them wildly at the goal with little success; Mary wandered around in her own little world, totally enraptured in her book; Trixie and Jane strolled arm in arm across the grounds, chattering in low, fast voices. Mrs. Mattel and Mr. Collins took the air together, observing the five girls in their activities. 

“I really must congratulate you on the charms of your daughters, my dear Madam. I must confess myself quite overwhelmed,” Mr. Collins said.

“Oh, you are kind to remark upon it, sir. They are sweet girls if I say so myself.”

“Perhaps,” he began artfully, “Miss Jane Mattel is most especially charming?”

“Ah, yes, Jane is admired wherever she goes. But I think I should tell you, Mr. Collins - I think it very likely that she be engaged soon. There is a certain agreement between her and another man.”

Mr. Collins’ face dropped. “Ah. I see.”

“But of my other daughters, I know of no such engagement in their cases. I’m sure you shall find any of them equally charming in time to come,”

Mr. Collins grunted in agreement, and his eyes slid from Lydia and Kitty playing Hoops to Mary tucked away in her own little corner reading, and finally settled on Trixie laughing with Jane. He grimaced a little at the unbecoming laugh, but he decided he could for now look past it, and eventually come to train her out of it. His grimace turned into a smile and he turned back to Mrs. Mattel, quite decided. 

“Mama! We were just on our way to Meryton to see if Denny is returned from town,” exclaimed Lydia. Mrs. Mattel turned craftily to Mr. Collins. 

“Well, what a splendid idea! Mr. Collins, do you desire of some exercise?”

“I do indeed, Mrs. Mattel. How exceedingly kind of you.”

Lydia’s face fell and she turned back to Kitty in barely concealed disgust. 

“Come on then, you three. Let’s go,” she said, tugging along at her sisters. 

Mr. Collins walked up to Trixie. 

“Oh, Cousin Beatrice…?” he simpered. Trixie forced her face into a smile. “May I perhaps accompany you on this journey?”

\---

They had managed most of the journey in a sort of silence, with Mr. Collins only occasionally breaking it to compare the rustic manner of the trees here with the grandeur of the garden at Rosings Park, and Trixie had thus far managed to evade more conversation. She was starting to let herself believe she would be able to escape further discussions with the man until he started up again as they were crossing the bridge into Meryton. 

“You visit your Aunt Philips regularly, I understand, Cousin?”

“Yes, often. She is fond of company. But I’m afraid you shall find her gatherings poor affairs after the splendor of Rosings Park.”

“Ah, there I believe you are mistaken. I believe I possess the happy knack, as is often desired of clergymen, to adjust myself seamlessly into any society, whether high or low. And though it is a gift of nature, I find myself in constant study to make a kind of art of it, if you will,”  
He ended this statement snorting with laughter, which made Trixie believe it was an attempt at a joke, and so she feebly chuckled along too. She so hated men who stood too close. 

“Look, there’s Denny!” said Lydia, racing ahead of the group. “Who’s that man standing with him? He looks exceedingly handsome, wouldn’t you say, Trixie?”

Denny and the aforementioned man caught sight of Lydia’s waving and made their way over. 

“What a fine joke!” said Lydia when they had come. “We thought you were still in town!”

“There was nothing amusing enough to hold us there! Allow me to introduce my good friend, George Wickham.”

Mr. Wickham stood very confidently and assuredly, with his handsome head of dark locks thrust into the air. There seemed little conceit about him, though Trixie still sensed something beneath the exterior that went unsaid. 

“Do you stay long in Meryton, Mr. Wickham?” she asked. When he turned his face to answer her, she observed his eyes were quite a startling shade of green. 

“The whole winter, I’m happy to say. I’ve taken a commission in Colonel Forster’s regiment.”

“So you are an army man. I’m glad to hear you shall be dressed in regimentals,” Lydia remarked cheekily. 

“And lend them much distinction, I daresay. Outswagger us all, eh, Wickham,” Denny answered in jest.

“Denny, you misrepresent me to these young ladies,” Mr. Wickham said. Could that be shyness in his countenance? Trixie was most intrigued. Lydia, however, seemed intrigued with him in ways other than analysing his character. She looked him up and down once more, then opened her mouth.

“Shall you come with us to Mr. and Mrs. Philips tonight? It’s only dinner and cards, but we shall be happy to have you.”

“As long as the hosts are content to extend the invitation to me, I shall be very glad to come. I’ve been longing to make new acquaintances around these parts. Especially women.”

He locked eyes once again with Trixie. She decided that whatever was hiding beneath his exterior was of less importance now - he seemed a very pleasant man. A call was heard behind him.

“Jane?” It was Mr. Bingley, riding on his horse. Jane immediately burst into a sunshine of smiles, and she ran to his side as he dismounted. 

“We were just on our way to Longbourn to enquire after your health. I am so very happy to see it is much improved,” he said, and Trixie was puzzled. We? Another large black horse soon answered her question, and she was taken aback to see Miss Zamo on top of it. Why had she come all this way to see Jane? Surely she had little interest in her. 

Trixie decided to take the high road and she nodded at Miss Zamo, whose mouth started to twitch into the ghost of a smile. Suddenly it soured, and her eyes widened with shock and disgust. She had caught sight of Mr. Wickham. 

Trixie was deeply bewildered. Why should a gentlewoman have such a strong reaction to a seemingly inconsequential man in the army? Mr. Wickham also seemed moved to see Miss Zamo, and tipped his hat at her. With that, Miss Zamo twitched her reins and rode on, without saying a single word to the entire party. Trixie was left in unfathomable puzzles. 

\---

“This apartment reminds me very much of a small summer breakfast room in Rosings Park, home of my dear patron, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Did you know, the second chimney at the manor cost eight hundred pounds alone…”

The inescapable sound of Mr. Collins praising Rosings Park with all his might floated down the hall of Trixie’s Aunt Philips’ house, where a small gathering of assorted friends from the village and militia had assembled for the evening. Trixie sat alone, taking in the atmosphere, until a voice from behind stirred her from her thoughts. 

“I must confess, I thought I’d never be able to escape from your younger sisters,” the voice said. Trixie turned round and smiled: it was Mr. Wickham. 

“Indeed, they can be very determined. Lydia especially.” Both pairs of eyes travelled to the opposite side of the room where Lydia sat playing cards with a table of men - all of whom seemed quite at her mercy. 

“Please, sir, sit down,” Trixie said, gesturing to an empty seat across from her. Wickham slid into it gratefully.

They’re pleasant girls. I must say, the society in Hertfordshire far exceeds my expectations. Though I don’t see Mr. Bingley or his friends here tonight,” he added. Trixie shook her head. 

“I believe some of Mr. Bingley’s friends might consider this soiree far below their dignity.” she answered. 

“Really?” he replied, and they sat in silence a little while longer. 

“Have… have you known Miss Zamo long?” he asked, stuttering and stammering a little. 

“Only a few weeks.”

“I’ve known her all my life.” came the reply, and Trixie could not help but widen her eyes with shock. “We played together as children.”

“But…” Trixie started, trying to figure out how to ask the obvious without sounding disrespectful, and Mr. Wickham seemed to understand. 

“Yes, you’re surprised. Perhaps you seemed to notice the cold manner of our greeting?”

“I confess I did,” she admitted.

“Do you… are you much acquainted with the woman?” he asked, somewhat shyly. Trixie laughed a little. 

“As much as I ever wish to be. I spent a few days in the same house with her, and I find her very disagreeable.”

Mr. Wickham nodded. “I fear there would be few who share that opinion… apart from myself.”

Trixie cocked her head in confusion. “But she’s not at all liked in Hertfordshire. Everybody is disgusted with her pride.”

“Does she intend to stay long at Netherfield?”

Trixie shook her head. “I do not know. But I hope her being in the neighbourhood will not affect your plans to stay?”

Mr Wickham seemed very touched. “Thank you. But it is not for me to be driven away by Miss Zamo. If she wishes to avoid seeing me, she must…” he trailed off, sounding uneasy. After shaking his head, he continued.  
“We’re not on friendly terms, but I have no reason to avoid her but one. She has done me a great wrong.”

Trixie was shaken a little by this discovery. She had previously diagnosed Miss Zamo’s faults as being solely to do with her pride and snobbery, but to learn that she had actually wronged a man was news indeed. Mr. Wickham leaned forward a little to divulge the story. 

“Her father, Miss Mattel, the late Mr. Zamolodchikova, was my Godfather. And, in my opinion, one of the greatest men who ever breathed. My father was his steward, and when he died, Old Mr. Zamo provided for me, cared for me, loved me as a son, I believe. He intended me for the Church, and I found great solace in that career - it was my dearest wish to enter into the profession. But after he died, the living he’d promised me fell short. His daughter refused, point blank, to allow me any fortune at all, and cast me out into the street. I must confess if Colonel Forster had not allowed me into his regiment I would be living in some den of debauchery to survive as we speak. And here I am, penniless, with no titles or influence in society, all because Miss Zamo did not believe I was worthy enough to receive my fortune.” 

Trixie was breathing heavily in indignation all throughout the speech, and when he had finished she burst out.  
“This is quite shocking! I had not thought Miss Zamo as bad as this!”  
Mr. Wickham seemed almost apologetic in his confession.  
“Please do not allow me to taint your opinion of the woman…” he insisted ineffectually, and Trixie raised a hand.

“Oh, you shall, sir. What an abominable way to treat someone who in all but name is family! To descend to such malicious revenge, she deserves to be publicly disgraced!”

“Some day, perhaps, ma’am. But not by me. Till I can forget her father I can neither deny nor expose her.” Mr Wickham appeared almost docile in his response, and Trixie could not help but admire the fine humours of the man. 

“You are far more temperate than I should be in this situation.”

“Well, I’ve not the resentful temper of some men. For now, I have my work to keep me engaged and fulfilled, the men in my regiment are pleasant enough, and I have the finest company in all of England by my side. I absolutely insist you do not feel sorry for me!”

At that point, Lydia dragged him off to dance and Trixie was left alone in her thoughts. How much she had to contemplate!

\---

“I simply cannot believe it, Trixie,” said Jane that night, once Trixie had divulged all she had been told earlier.  
“Miss Zamo would have far too high a respect for her father’s wishes to behave in such an indecent way. And Trixie, consider: how could her most intimate friends be so deceived in her?”

Trixie leaned across the bed to Jane. “I could more easily imagine Mr. Bingley being imposed upon than to think that Mr. Wickham could invent such a history!”

“But after so short an acquaintance, how shall we believe him?”

Trixie contemplated the idea that the story could be fabricated, then shook her head fiercely. “How could he be doubted? He gave me all the circumstances, Jane - names, facts. All without ceremony. If it isn’t true, let Miss Zamo contradict it herself. And besides, there was truth in all his looks.”

Jane sighed defeatedly. “Indeed. I beg your pardon if I seem disbelieving, the matter is so distressing. I simply don’t know what to think!”

Trixie sat up and folded her legs to her chest, hugging her arms tight around them and resting her pointed chin on her knees. “On the contrary, I know exactly what to think. I swear, I hope I shall never have the misfortune of speaking to Miss Zamo again!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a little curious - is anyone reading this without prior knowledge of the book/film/TV show? If so, what do you think of the characters? I'm absolutely dying to know!


	5. The Electric Dance, and a Most Unfortunate Question

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're not aware of the type of dances I'm referring to when you read this, it might be a little confusing. I don't mean ballroom dances like the waltz, I mean line-esque ceilidh dances which were popular in English rural societies in the Regency period. For reference, I recommend watching the 2005 adaptation of the book (partly to clear it up, but mostly cos it's a great film)
> 
> Enjoy!

The news of a ball held at Netherfield was one of the most exciting things that had graced the village of Meryton for quite some time. It was said that an invitation was extended to everyone within five miles of the manor, and everyone who was able deigned to come. The village was so accustomed to dances held in the old pub which, though serviceable, was dank and dusty and more than a little quaint, that ball held in so grand an establishment was the only thing anybody could talk about for more than a week in advance of it. 

Mrs. Mattel, of course, believed the whole event to be a pretense for Mr. Bingley to propose to Jane, and chortled merrily about the matter for days beforehand. Jane outwardly grew more and more limp and unresponsive the more her mother talked of it, but Trixie knew that it was not because of her indifference to the man as so many presumed - quite the contrary. It was because she couldn’t allow her hopes to rise, for she still could hardly believe Mr. Bingley fancied her. Trixie marvelled at her sister’s modesty, and took great pains to smother her sister with compliments every night in order to grow her confidence, and for Jane to at last see herself as well as other people saw her. 

To the inward disgust of all of the Mattel sisters, the invitation was indeed extended to Mr. Collins, for it took place on his penultimate night in Hertfordshire. He had asked Miss Trixie for her hand in the first two dances and she had reluctantly agreed, painfully aware of her mother’s steely gaze and sharp tongue should she refuse. 

She reflected over the matter as she sat in front of the mirror on the night of the ball, and sighed heavily. She then decided to not let the first two dances of the night put a damper on the whole evening, sat up and looked properly at her appearance. 

Her cloud of hair had been painstakingly ragged and curled for this very night, and now it sat coiled and plaited in a bun at the back of her head. She had spent many hours during the week creating the perfect garland of midwinter flowers from the garden, and had threaded it through her hair - pale pink rosebuds that nestled angelically among her golden tresses and set the colour perfectly. Her dress was a soft pink cotton that blended with her creamy skin and swished most pleasingly as she walked, and as she turned this way and that in front of the unforgiving mirror, she finally allowed herself to admit that she did indeed look rather pretty. 

\---

The atmosphere outside Netherfield as the Mattel carriage drew up was something that Trixie had never experienced. The night seemed to crackle with possibility, and she could not quite pinpoint what felt so very special about this particular night. The air smelt somehow sweeter; the stars seemed to twinkle a little more charmingly; the candlelight appeared to glow more brightly and boldly than Trixie had ever seen candles glow.  
She suddenly longed to revert back to childhood, and race and dance around wildly, and laugh with no inhibitions, but instead she grasped Jane’s hand and made her way up the marble steps. 

The Bingleys stood by the door greeting their guests. Miss Bingley reached out and grasped Jane’s hand as she passed. 

“What a pleasure to see you here, Miss Mattel. We are so very glad you have recovered, though of course it was a pity to say goodbye to you. Charles and I have been quite desolate without you, haven’t we?” she tinkled in a cold, high voice.  
As always when Miss Caroline Bingley spoke, Trixie was constantly puzzled as to whether the pleasant words she spoke were actually meant with sincerity, or if every remark made was a thinly-veiled insult. Trixie rather disliked being around people so confusing, and so made her way to Mr. Bingley to greet him, comforted by his pleasantly straightforward countenance. However, Mr. Collins’ presence remained rather unavoidable in its essence, so she brought him forward to introduce him to the company. 

“Sir, this is our cousin, Mr. Collins. He has been staying with our family this sevenday week.” she said, proffering the man to Mr. Bingley, rather hoping he of all people might be able to see some good in the dull man. 

“How charming to meet you, sir,” Mr. Collins said, sweeping into a deep bow. “Might I remark upon the impressive grandeur and fineness of this hallway? It is almost as fine as the second best hallway in the house of my patron, Lady Catherine de Beurgh - I say, have you had the good fortune of knowing of Rosings Park?” 

Shooting a small look of sympathy over her shoulder at Mr. Bingley by way of an apology for abandoning him with Mr. Collins, Trixie made her way into the ballroom to seek out Mr. Wickham. Lydia whirled past with a gaggle of officers hanging on her arms. 

“Are you looking for Mr. Wickham, Trixie? I should not blame you! Denny says he’s stuck in town for the evening and cannot attend. How I hate Denny now for being the bearer of such poor news!” she playfully clapped Denny on the arm and he chuckled obligingly. 

“Most unfortunately ma’am, I have been instructed to inform you he’s been called away on urgent business. Though I’m not entirely sure how much of the tale is true and how much is fabricated as an excuse to avoid one particular woman!”

Before Trixie could question him further, Denny was dragged away by a petulant Lydia and Trixie was left quite alone again. While still pondering his final sentence, her eyes landed on the figure of Miss Zamo lingering uncertainty at the edges of the hall. Trixie rolled her eyes - she was the last person she Trixie desired to see tonight. She hurried away in search of Charlotte, and thankfully found her in the next room. 

Without even stopping to greet her friend, she took Charlotte by the arm and directed her to a quiet corner of the room where she might divulge all she knew of Miss Zamo now. 

\---

Almost three hours had passed, and Trixie was feeling a little exhausted of this ball. She had been made by a nudging Mrs. Mattel and her sharp elbows to dance the first two sets with Mr. Collins, a wholly unpleasant activity. She had never danced with someone with so little rhythm or sense of space before - she winced in memory at the bruises on her toes where his stomping feet had made contact with them. She hated dancing with men, anyway. She far preferred to dance with women, though she wasn’t sure that would be possible at this ball. Back at the village dances, everyone was used to her dancing with women, but she had no idea how the rich gentleman and ladies at this party would react. So instead she retired to a chair in the parlour and avoided the dance floor. 

This room was possibly even worse, however. Mrs. Mattel had seemingly drained Mr. Bingley of every jug of wine he had in the place, and now sat deliriously with her friends from the village, talking very loudly of the fine match between Jane and Mr. Bingley in a way that would have mortified Jane to the very core if she’d heard. 

Lydia and Kitty had also consumed their fair share of wine, and chased Denny and some other officers throughout the throngs of people standing about, giggling most obscenely. Trixie wanted to shake them: were they aware of the fact they were in high society now, not the village dance? And here they were, acting like children. 

Trixie closed her eyes in shame, and heard a familiar plonking sound that filled her up with dread. Mary had discovered the pianoforte. She bashed out a sombre tune, then opened her mouth to sing in a thin, reedy voice that made several people who stood close to the instrument to cover their ears and move across the room. Trixie wondered how long she must be tortured by her family like this, until Mr. Mattel went over to Mary and gently closed the lid of the pianoforte. 

“You’ve delighted us long enough, my dear. Let the other young ladies have a turn,” he said, and Mary looked around in horror to observe how the crowds had dissipated, and a group of rich girls who stood in the corner snickering at her. Her lower lip wobbled, and she dashed out of the room. At this point, Trixie’s face was an impressive shade of scarlet. 

Charlotte fortunately passed at that moment, and Trixie grabbed onto her arm and begged she sit down beside her. 

“Charlotte, save me. I am certain my family has a competition within themselves to see who can embarrass us the most in front of this society tonight.” she said, flapping her face ineffectually with a fan. Charlotte opened her mouth to reply in sympathy, but all words died on her lips when she saw who was approaching Trixie from over her shoulder. 

Miss Zamo joined the pair, and stood stiffly between them. 

“Miss Mattel, would you give me the honour of dancing the next with me?”

“I will.”

Miss Zamo nodded, and after a second’s hesitation, turned on her heels and walked out of the room. 

Everything was silent between the pair for a little while, then Trixie turned to Charlotte. 

“Did I just agree to dance with Miss Zamo?”

Charlotte was staring at her, bemused. 

“Indeed you did, Trixie! I must confess I was very much surprised when you did, after everything you have told me of her. Why did you?”

Trixie opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again. Why did she agree? Perhaps it was the seriousness in her face, or the quirk of her brow that betrayed a shadow of nervousness. Perhaps it was the telltale click of her shoes, or the way she cleared her throat before she called her name. Either way, she now had an unavoidable engagement to dance with Miss Zamo, and she did not have the least idea as to what would come of it. 

\---

Trixie was still contemplating her sanity as the music began and she saw Miss Zamo opposite her with the row of gentlemen. She almost caught herself thinking that Miss Zamo looked almost agreeable in the candlelight - her face not quite so haughty, her posture a little less rigid. But then she managed to catch herself going any further in what she considered one of life’s greatest misfortunes: to find a woman agreeable whom one is determined to hate. 

Trixie was very fond of this particular dance. It was more sordid and melancholy than the jolly and energetic dances Lydia favoured, and was therefore a much easier dance to converse over. 

Miss Zamo and the line of gentlemen bowed low to signify the beginning of the set, and Trixie and the line of ladies reciprocated, then all the partners joined hands for the first steps of the dance. Trixie noticed how unwilling Miss Zamo was to holding her hand, instead hovering her gloved palm a good inch above Trixie’s before gently lowering it, as if she believed something terrible might happen when they connected. 

‘Imagine thinking yourself so above everyone else,’ thought Trixie to herself, ‘that you are reluctant to hold hands during a dance.’

As the dance continued, Trixie began to wonder if they were to perform the entire set without saying a word to each other. She itched to break the silence, and eventually could bare it no longer. 

“I love this dance,” she said, and was slightly shocked to hear a reply. 

“Indeed. Most invigorating.”

They carried on a little while in silence after that. 

“It is your turn to say something, Miss Zamo. I talked about the dance, now you ought to comment on the size of the room or the number of couples,”

“I am perfectly happy to oblige, please advise me of what you should like most to hear.”

“That reply shall do for present.”

The dance directed them up and down the room, weaving in and out of the other couples, with much twisting and turning. Trixie’s hair escaped from its pinned shackles and a few flyaways floated down to frame her face. She could rectify it once the dance was over. 

“Perhaps in time I might remark upon the fact that private balls are so much pleasanter than public ones. For now we may remain silent.” 

After the lack of reply, Trixie had just about given up on attempting to initiate conversation. She had just began to let her mind wonder when a voice beside her brought her back to earth.

“Do you talk as a rule during dances?”

Trixie felt a little anger and irritation rise within her, and she struggled to keep the lid on her temper. “No. No, I prefer to be unsociable and taciturn. It makes it so much more enjoyable, wouldn't you agree?”

“Tell me, do you and your sisters very often walk to Meryton?”

“Yes, we often walk to Meryton. It is a fine opportunity to meet new people. In fact, we were in the throws of making a new acquaintance when you and Mr. Bingley arrived on your horses the other day.”

The effect this had on her dancing partner was palpable: she turned almost green with whiteness, and her hand on Trixie’s jerked a little, seemingly involuntarily. 

“Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners, he is sure to make friends. Whether he’s capable of retaining them is less sure.”

“He’s been so unfortunate as to lose your friendship. And I daresay that is an irreversible event?”

“It is.” she replied bluntly. “Why do you ask such a question?”

The dance seemed less important now. In fact, neither of them played attention to it at all. They stood in the middle of the floor, the steps quite abandoned, with the other couples continuing to turn and swish about them. They stared at each other, neither willing to back down, and Trixie suddenly realised that she was taller than the other woman. She wondered how she’d never noticed before, seeing what a difference it made to the dynamic between the two of them. 

“To make out your character.”

“And what have you discovered?”

“Very little. I hear such different accounts of you that it puzzles me exceedingly.”

“Well, I hope to afford you more clarity in future.”

They stood staring into each other’s faces, each daring the other to say more, competing in a silent battle of wills, until a couple brushed past them and burst into their little bubble. They both shook off the intensity of the last conversation and continued the dance, hardly breaking eye contact. 

The longer they danced, the more the outside world faded into non existence. The dozens of chattering folk lining the edges of the hall and couples on the dance floor seemed to disappear until all it was just the two women dancing together, communicating silently, each thinking so strongly of the other it was a wonder their thoughts were not spilling out of their ears. 

Finally the music stopped and the dance was over. The couples applauded cheerfully and went about their ways, chattering excitedly, until Miss Zamo and Trixie were left alone where they were standing. A strand of hair that had flown loose during the dance floated in front of Trixie’s face and she blew it off impatiently, still seething.

Miss Zamo’s eyes seemed fixated on that strand of hair. She slowly reached out a hand that appeared to be trembling, and put it to the side of Trixie’s face, as if to smooth the strand back into its place. She was so gentle in her movements that Trixie hardly felt she was there. Trixie could all of a sudden barely breathe - it seemed as if all the air in the room had been sucked out when the dance ended. Suddenly her hand jerked and her body stiffened, and her hand froze by the side of Trixie’s face. She turned swiftly on her heel and walked away, without another word.

Trixie let out a long held-in breath. She was so frustrated by this woman. She had reason to believe that she was a cheating scoundrel, and the evidence she collected based on her countenance and conversation would prove that to be true, but why would such a kind man as Mr. Bingley keep her close as one of his oldest friends? It made little sense indeed. However, by this point she was extremely unwilling to give Miss Zamo the benefit of the doubt. Her opinion of the woman was by this point so clouded that Trixie was convinced that there was no evidence in favour of the woman that could redeem her. 

“I say,” a voice said behind her, and she jumped out of her skin. She had been quite lost in her thoughts. She turned around, and inwardly groaned to see the voice belonged to Mr. Collins.  
“Is that Miss Zamo of Pemberly Hall?”

“Yes, but…”

“I must make myself known to her at once. You know, she is the niece of my patron, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and promised to her son.” 

Mr Collins weaved through the crowds to introduce himself, and Trixie could do little but stand and watch at the unfortunate scene that played out.

“What interesting relatives you have, Miss Mattel,” a woman said beside her, and she turned to see it was Caroline Bingley. Trixie was so full of emotions that she did not know what to do with, and wasn’t interested in wasting energy coming up with a smart response. She simply turned on her heel and walked off in search of Charlotte. 

\---

Trixie had let off a little steam by ranting incessantly to Charlotte about her family and their constant instance of exposing themselves to ridicule and vulgarity without drawing breath once. She then grabbed a goblet of wine in each hand and proceeded to drink the contents of both without stopping, then sat back heavily in her chair with a huff. 

Charlotte sat opposite, with a mixture of amusement and concern on her face. 

“I do feel for you, Trixie. At least Mr. Bingley seems not to have noticed,” they both observed Mr. Bingley dancing with Jane, both of them positively aglow with happiness. 

“No,” agreed Trixie. “I do believe he likes her very much.”

“But does she like him?” questioned Charlotte. “There are few of us who are secure to really in love without proper encouragement. Bingley likes her, enormously. But he might not do more if she does not help him on,”

“But she’s just shy and modest!” insisted Trixie. “If he cannot perceive her regard, he is a fool.”

“We are all fools in love. You must consider, Trixie: he does not know her character as we do. She should move fast; snap him up. There is plenty of time for them to get to know each other after they are married...

\---

The next morning was rather subdued. Lydia, Kitty and Mrs. Mattel sat groaning, complaining of terrible headaches and sporting impressive dark circles underneath their eyes. Jane and Trixie, who could hold their wine a little better, gently teased them and passed them glasses of water. Mary kept attempting to practise scales on the pianoforte, only to be received by bad tempered snapping at her unfortunate plodding music. 

Trixie was laughing at the scene when a cough from behind caught her entirely off guard.

“I wonder, Miss Beatrice…” Mr. Collins said. “Might I seek a private audience with you?”

Trixie’s insides froze - she gazed in wide eyed horror at her mother, silently begging her to decline, but to her dread, Mrs. Mattel nodded.

“Certainly! Miss Beatrice will be most obliged, won’t you, dear? Come along, everyone…”

She stood up and hurried her reluctant daughters out of the room, who shoot sympathetic looks to Trixie over their shoulders as they left. 

“Wait, please! Mr. Collins can have nothing to say to met that anybody need not hear…” she cried desperately at the retreating figure of her mother. 

“Nonsense, dear! I desire you to stay where you are.” she said firmly.

And with the slam of the door, Trixie was left quite alone with him. 

She swallowed a few times, trying to think of something to say. He cleared his throat and walked over to her, placing something down on the table in front of her. She lowered her eyes slowly and say it was a single, wilting, rather sad little flower.

Two pink spots burned in her cheeks. She was quite speechless. 

“Dear Miss Beatrice,” he began mechanically, as if he were reading from a script. “I’m sure my intentions have been too obvious to be mistaken. Almost as soon as I entered the house I singled you out as the companion for my future life.”

Trixie could not look up from staring at the flower on the table.

“But, before I run away with my feelings, perhaps I should outline some of my reasons for wishing to marry. Firstly, is that it is the duty of a clergyman to set the example of matrimony in his parish. Secondly, I am convinced it will greatly add to my happiness. And thirdly, it is at the urging of my esteemed patron, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, that I select a wife. Indeed, my object in coming to Longbourne was to choose such a one that would satisfy both Lady Catherine and myself in our needs and desires. It is of the greatest luck the the object of my wishes is among Mr. Mattel’s daughters, for I am to inherit the estate, and such an alliance would surely be preferable.  
And now, nothing remains but for me to assure you in the most animated language of the violence of my affections-- ” he said, sliding onto one knee. Trixie’s speech suddenly returned to her, and she shot out of her chair like a cork from a bottle. 

“Mr. Collins,” she said ineffectually.

“-- and that no reproach on the subject of fortune shall cross my lips once we’re married.”

“You are too hasty, sir. You have forgotten that I have not yet given an answer.”

He continued as though he could not hear any of her protests. “I must add that Lady Catherine will most surely approve when I tell her of your modesty, economy and other… amiable qualities.”

“Sir.” Trixie said sharply, and at last he seemed to hear. “I am honoured by your proposal but I regret that I must decline it.”  
He blinked. “I know ladies don’t seek to appear too eager--”

“Mr. Collins, I am perfectly serious! I could not make you happy and I am convinced you are the last person in the world who could make me happy.”

He looked bewildered. “But your mother… your mother assured me there was no prior engagement. Is there someone else, another man you have set your desires on?”

“No, sir. No other man. Please stand up…”

He cleared his throat and persisted. “I flatter myself, cousin, that your refusal is merely a natural delicacy. Besides, you should take into account that despite the manifold attractions, it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made to you--”

Trixie had used up all her pity, and was erring into frustration at his not accepting her refusal. “Mr. Collins.” she said, as angrily as she dared.

“-- so I must conclude that you simply mean to increase my love by suspense according to the usual practice of elegant females.”

“Sir. I am not the sort of woman to torment respectable men. Please understand me: I cannot accept you.”

She had had enough. She turned sharply and left the room - as she did so, the door to the drawing room burst open and her family exploded in. Jane was beside herself; Lydia and Kitty were almost choking with laughter, and Mrs. Mattel looked livid. 

“Beatrice! Beatrice, wait…”

The sound of her mother’s cries echoed in her ears and chased her all down the hall as she raced out of the house and slammed the front door behind her in a rage of fury, running as fast as she could towards the fields, where she could be alone. 

\--- 

By the time she dared to creep back to the house, it was nearly sunset. She’d spent the rest of the day walking all over the fields and hills surrounding Longbourn, contemplating everything from actually marrying the man to running away to Europe and changing her name. The more she walked, the more she felt her anger dissipate, until eventually she felt calm enough to return home. 

She still dreaded to think that state her mother would be in when she returned, so she opened the door as quietly as possible and attempted to sneak into her bedroom where she could talk to Jane, but a dark shadow loomed at the top of the hall, and she knew there was no escaping it. 

“I’m not marrying him, Mama,” Trixie said firmly, and a little sullenly.

“Trixie.” her mother replied, and Trixie could tell she was exceedingly angry. “If you do not marry him, we shall all be cast out when your father dies. Would you prefer that? Think of someone besides yourself for once, girl.”

“I’m not marrying him,” she repeated simply. 

“Perhaps your father can talk you into it. Come here,” she said, closing her iron-tight grip around Trixie’s wrist and dragging her off into Mr. Mattel’s study. He looked up from the book he was reading with an unplaceable expression.

“Trixie, you must go back to Mr. Collins immediately and tell him you have changed your mind.” Mrs. Mattel raged behind her. Trixie stood staring into her father’s eyes, praying she convince him of the absurdity of the idea. 

“Papa…” she said. 

“You shall have this house!” Mrs. Mattel continued screeching. 

“Papa, please.”

“And save your sisters from destitution!”

“I can’t marry him. You cannot make me.”

“Mr. Mattel, say something!” his wife implored, quite out of her mind with desperation. 

He closed and set aside his book in a calm, orderly manner. 

“So. Beatrice. Your mother insists on you marrying Mr. Collins.” he stated composedly.

“Yes, or I shall never see her again!” Mrs. Mattel declared shrilly. He held up a hand, insisting on calm.

“Well, Trixie, from this day onward, you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins. And I will never see you again if you do.”

A wave of relief washed over Trixie, and she smiled for the first time that day. Mrs. Mattel stared at him with abject horror, then proceeded to berate him in every way she thought possible. Trixie merely stood and grinned, eternally grateful to him. He understood, and smiled at her as he picked up his book again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the hugs and kisses in the world to anyone who reads this. 
> 
> Lots of love! Xoxo


	6. The Romanticism of Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this one took so long! I promise it's worth it-- I think you'll be happy with this one
> 
> Lots of love, and happy reading!!

Christmas thankfully passed with little incident. Mrs. Mattel seethed at Trixie for a number of weeks, though Trixie and Mr. Mattel agreed it was most likely a performance. For some time everything was calm, until the month of January when two very large and very unpleasant things happened within days of each other. 

The first was that Charlotte came to visit Trixie, with a rather guilty and ashamed look on her face. Trixie sensed that something was wrong but knew Charlotte to be smarter than to need goading into divulging her news, so they simply sat together until she felt ready to share. 

“Trixie, I… I must tell you something,” Charlotte said, staring straight ahead, too shy to even look Trixie in the eye. 

“Someone has proposed to me. And I have said yes.” Trixie’s heart dropped at this news. She was pleased for her friend, of course she was, but she wanted to keep Charlotte all for herself. After firmly scolding herself in her head for being so selfish, she smiled and turned properly to face her.

“I truly am pleased for you, Charlotte. I know how much your parents desired you to get married. You shall be a wife! I shall come to your wedding and fling rose petals as hard as I can, and I shall visit you and your husband every single day if you’ll have me, and I shall know your children and tell them stories of you when you were younger…” Trixie trailed off when she saw Charlotte holding back a violent sob.

“Oh, my dear! Whatever’s the matter? Who is the man?”

Charlotte took a deep breath, then placed a hand on Trixie’s.

“It’s Mr. Collins.”

Trixie burst out laughing: she could not help it. Charlotte looked bewildered.

“No, Trixie, it really is,” she said.

“Of course it is! And I am to marry King George!” Trixie said merrily. Her laughter faded when she saw Charlotte’s face.  
“No, it can’t… it can’t be true,” she protested weakly. 

Charlotte nodded regretfully. 

“But… Mr. Collins… why on earth would you ever marry Mr. Collins?”

Charlotte looked away in shame. 

“Because, Trixie… not everyone in the world is as lucky as you. And yes, I say lucky. I don’t have your looks, I have no money and no prospects. I am twenty-seven years old, and what you don’t understand is that not everyone has the privilege of turning down a man because they can’t bear to marry him. You believe I could bear to marry Mr. Collins? I’m sure I will be driven out of my mind with him. But it is better to marry a man you find irritating and dull than to marry a drunk, or a violent man, or a man thirty years older than you. And those are the options I will have left if I don’t accept Mr. Collins.  
I’m sorry, Trixie, I truly am. But you have to know that not marrying is simply not a choice for me. And Mr. Collins will just have to do.”

Trixie sat silent for Charlotte’s little speech, her brain whirring faster and louder than it ever had before. 

“Where will you live?” she said eventually.

“He has a small cottage. Apparently it’s not ten minutes walk from Rosings Park. You must come and visit us, Trixie. I shall be so disheartened if you don’t,”

Trixie turned to her friend and smiled - a proper, sincere smile. 

“I shall visit you. As often as I am permitted. I am proud of you, and… I wish I had your bravery,” she said, and the two embraced in the way that only two women who have been friends since childhood can embrace. 

\--- 

The second event that happened was that a letter arrived, addressed to Jane. It arrived on a cold, crisp morning, and when the servant delivered it everyone clamoured round her.

“It’s from Caroline Bingley!” Jane announced happily, recognising the handwriting. Her sisters all gushed with joy, and Mrs. Mattel was practically rhapsodic.

“She writes to invite you to dinner! Her brother wishes to propose! Oh, Jane, my dear, I knew you could do it! We are saved, we are all saved… well, why do you hesitate, child? Open it, read it, and if I am wrong I owe you all five shillings,” Mrs. Mattel crowed with excitement, hugging her eldest daughter with glee. 

Slowly, Jane opened the letter and scanned the first few lines. Trixie studied her face eagerly to see her undoubtedly blissful reaction. However, Jane’s face crumpled and she dropped the letter from her shaking hands, dashing off towards the bedroom.  
“Whatever’s the matter? Jane? Jane!” Trixie called after her, but the only reply was Jane’s miserable sobs echoing down the hall. The girls all looked, puzzled, towards their mother, who was equally confused. Kitty snatched up the letter and read the first few lines, then gasped and clutched a hand to her chest. 

“Mr. Bingley has left Netherfield. He is returning to London this very night, with no plans to return! Oh, poor, poor Jane…” she said, and Mrs. Mattel let out a sound so loud all the servants came rushing in to see if she was dying. Trixie gave her mother a reassuring pat on the hand, then took the letter from Kitty and ran upstairs to tend to Jane.

The poor girl lay on the bed, sobbing with anguish, and didn’t seem to notice Trixie coming in. 

“Jane…” her sister said softly. “I’m so sorry.” 

Jane sat up, wiping her eyes. 

“It’s alright,” she sniffed. “I do understand. I mean, I am me, and he is… him. But I do so wish he could have come to say goodbye…” a fresh wave of tears overcame her and she buried her face in the pillow again.

Trixie picked up the letter and read it, hoping to see some reason in Bingley’s decision.

“Miss Zamo is impatient to see her sister, and we are scarcely less eager to meet her again. I really do not think Georgiana Zamolodchikova has an equal for beauty, elegance and accomplishments, so much so that I hope hereafter to call her my sister.” she read.

“Is that not clear enough?” said Jane mournfully.

Trixie was a little more optimistic, and passed the letter back.

“Caroline sees that her brother is in love with you, and has taken him off to persuade him otherwise.”

Jane looked a little reproachful. “But I know her to be incapable of willfully deceiving anyone!” she protested weakly. “It’s far more likely that he doesn’t love me, and never did.”

“He loves you, Jane!” Trixie told her sternly. “Do not give up. Why don’t you go to London? Stay with our aunt and uncle. Let it be known that you are there, and I am sure he will come to you.”

“Perhaps he will. But Trixie, I do not know how much more my heart can be toyed with before it breaks.”

Trixie leaned over and kissed Jane on the forehead, caringly and meaningfully.

“I know. You have the kindest heart in all of England. And I so wish I could make everything perfect for you, and wipe out all sadness. But perhaps going to London is the next best thing.”

\---

Jane eventually departed to London a fortnight after Mr. Bingley left. She had wished to leave first thing the next morning, but their Aunt and Uncle Gardiner were away on business and could only accept her two weeks later. All the same, off she went, and Trixie was left alone standing in the driveway, waving her off. 

“Give my love to my sister! And try not to be a burden, dear!” Mrs. Mattel called out at Jane’s departing carriage.

Once Jane’s trundling carriage had become merely a speck in the distance, Mr. Mattel turned to Trixie.

“Poor Jane. Still, a girl likes to be crossed in love every now and then. It gives her something to think of, and a distinction among her companions.”

“I’m sure that would cheer up, Papa,” said Trixie, staring into the distance.

“Well, it’s your turn now, Trixie!” he said, nudging her gently. “You turned down Collins. You’re free to go off and be jilted yourself. You have such an affectionate mother, who would surely make the most of it,”

She chuckled slightly as he walked off, and contemplated the sheer impossibility of her ever falling in love.

\---

‘Dear Charlotte,

Thank you for your letter. I am so glad the house, furniture and roads are all to your taste, and that Lady Catherine’s behaviour is friendly and obliging. What with your departure, Jane’s to London, and the militia to the North with Mr. Wickham (with whom I am pleased to have made a firm friend) I must confess the view from where I have sat for the past three months has been rather grey. As for the favour you ask, it is no favour at all. I would be happy to visit at your earliest convenience. 

Yours, with love,

Trixie’

And so Trixie sat on a bumbling cart, bound to Hunsford, on a cheerful morning in March. She was quite desperate to see Charlotte, having been shut up in a house for three months with no one for company but her three younger sisters and her mother, who had become more shrill and overbearing than ever since Bingley left Netherfield. When at last she drew up to cottage, and saw her best friend beaming on the doorstep, she grinned hugely for what felt like the first time in months, and jumped off the cart to run up and threw her arms around Charlotte.

“Welcome to our humble abode,” said Mr. Collins beside her, and Trixie felt in such high spirits after seeing her friend again she even felt a little friendly towards the unfortunate man. She smiled at him and he blushed a little, perhaps still embarrassed after his less than successful proposal. 

“Do come in, Trixie,” Charlotte said, taking her by the hand and leading her into the doorway. 

“We shan’t be disturbed in this room,” she said, opening a door on the landing that led to a most pleasant, bright little room, kept warm by a cosy little fire chattering away in the hearth.  
“This is my own private parlour. Oh, how I do so like keeping my own home! You know better than any how much I like to be mistress of things,”

“How is Mr. Collins as a companion?” asked Trixie, accepting the cup of tea Charlotte offered her.  
Charlotte sighed and smiled, her eyes twinkling in the mischievous way Trixie had always noticed and loved.

“I encourage him to be in his garden as much as possible, as he tends to it himself. And he walks to Rosings Park nearly every day,”

“So often!” Trixie remarked. “Is that necessary?”

“Perhaps not. But I encourage him in that as well. And when he is in the house, he spends most of the day in his book room, which has a very good view of the road. Which proves most useful whenever Lady Catherine’s carriage should drive by.”

“And you prefer to sit in this parlour?”

“Yes. So it often happens that a whole day passes in which we’ve not spent more than a few minutes within each other’s company,”

“Oh, indeed?” Trixie asked, smiling.

“Indeed! I find I can bear the solitude very cheerfully,” 

The girls looked at each other then burst out laughing, gasping for breaths and wiping their tears on their handkerchiefs.

“Oh, Charlotte! How I’ve missed you,” Trixie said when they had recovered somewhat. 

“I find myself quite content in my situation, Trixie. Truly! I live a happy life.”

The two smiled at each other for a moment, before a loud call from downstairs startled them both.

“Charlotte! Charlotte, come quickly!” Mr. Collins shouted, and the two women bolted down. 

“What is it? Is the pig loose again?” Charlotte asked, reaching her husband. 

“Most wonderful news,” he replied. “We have received an invitation from Lady Catherine to dine at Rosings Park tonight,”

“Excellent!” said Charlotte, turning to Trixie with a slight grimace.

“Do not make yourself uneasy, my dear cousin, about your apparel and appearance,” Mr. Collins addressed Trixie.

“Just put on whatever you’ve brought that’s best,” reassured Charlotte, taking her friend by the arm.

“Lady Catherine’s never been averse to the truly humble,” Mr. Collins said, in a way Trixie was sure he thought was charming .

Trixie smiled and bobbed out of the room, mind racing at the prospect of finally meeting the famous Lady Catherine de Bourgh. 

\---

“One of the most extraordinary sights in all of Europe, is it not?” remarked Mr. Collins as they walked up the lane to Rosings Park.

Trixie had to admit, despite herself, it really was a fine house. Its countless turrets and chimneys shone very pleasantly in the early evening sun, and the gardens surrounding it could have been a public park due to their size and beauty. 

“The glazing alone cost upwards of twenty thousand pounds!” Mr. Collins continued. “Come along.”

As the butler showed them, Trixie was sure she had never been in a house so peculiar before. Indeed, it was rather obviously more expensive and grander than Netherfield, but was so stuffed with paintings and knick-knacks and furniture that it rather spoilt the beautiful simplicity of the house itself, and instead gave the impression of someone wanting to display every single shilling of wealth they had.  
The walls were painted a deep purple-ish red, which Trixie disliked immensely. It gave the place a sort of claustrophobic and unwelcoming feel, as opposed to the bright and friendly rooms she grew up in.

Mr. Collins went immediately to two figures sitting in the middle of the room on an elaborately decorated divan, and bowed low.

“Lady Catherine,” he half-whispered in a voice full of awe. “Mr. de Bourgh.”

He gestured with his head for the two women to join him, and as they walked slowly to greet the de Bourghs, Trixie got a good look at them.

The son, as expected, was very sickly-looking indeed. He was thin and pale, with dark circles under his eyes. He sat as a child sits, even though Trixie reckoned he was even older than she. But really, her eyes were drawn to the matriarch of the room: Lady Catherine de Bourgh. 

Her hair was piled onto her head in an extraordinary fashion, bedazzled with flowers and feathers and goodness knows what else. She wore a necklace of gold encrusted with jewels, that looked as if it weighed as much as a person. Her dress was a red-wine material, grander than any dress Trixie had ever seen. After all this, Trixie wished she could state that the lady’s face was pleasant and kind - unfortunately, it was quite on the contrary. Her face looked like a pudding left in the sun too long, with a mean, entitled look about it. Trixie distrusted her at once. 

“So you are Beatrice Mattel.” she said, in lieu of a greeting.

“I am, your Ladyship,” said Trixie, bowing.

“Mmm.” replied Lady Catherine, and Trixie rather felt she was being scanned up and down, and judged accordingly. 

Charlotte, bless her heart, sensed Trixie’s rising irritation, and cut in abruptly.

“It’s so kind of you to have us to dinner, your Ladyship,” she said politely, and Trixie turned away to study some artwork on the wall. As she gazed at it, a creaking floorboard to her left startled her, and as she turned to see who it was she got an even larger shock.

“Miss Zamo?” she said, disbelievingly. Miss Zamo nodded, something almost guilty in her mannerisms. “What are you doing here?”

Miss Zamo opened her mouth a few times, but words seemed to have eluded her. Trixie was slightly amused by this sudden bout of shyness in a woman previously known to be haughty and dismissive. It was a little endearing.

“I’m a guest here,” she eventually managed to stutter out, and at that Lady Catherine seemed to notice them.

“Ah, yes. You’ve met my niece? Yekaterina Zamolodchikova,”

“Yes, your ladyship. We met in Hertfordshire last autumn.” Trixie replied. Another man came into the room, pink and jolly looking.

“This is Colonel Fitzwilliam, a friend of mine,” said Miss Zamo, and Colonel Fitzwilliam bowed to Trixie with a wide grin on his face. Trixie wondered how it was that one of the least pleasant women in England surrounded herself with the nicest friends. 

\---

As they made their way in for dinner, Trixie managed to grab a seat next to Colonel Fitzwilliam, as she was already very fond of the man and wished to brighten up the heretofore drab dinner party with a little cheerful laughter, which she was sure he would provide. However, before they sat down, Lady Catherine managed to find fault with even the seating arrangements. 

“Stop!” she squawked, as the party prepared to sit. “Mr. Collins, you cannot possibly sit next to your wife. You must exchange with Miss Mattel.” 

Mr. Collins almost stumbled over himself moving, and Trixie reluctantly plucked herself out of her seat to sit next to Charlotte. However, on her left sat Miss Zamo. The party erupted into chatter, leaving Trixie and Miss Zamo at a loss for words.

“I trust your family are well?” said Miss Zamo eventually.

“They are, thank you. My oldest sister is currently in London, perhaps you happened to see her there?”

Miss Zamo looked shaken at this news, Trixie could not for the life of her fathom why.

“I haven’t been fortunate enough to, no.” she replied quietly. Trixie opened her mouth to continue the conversation but an interrupting noise startled them both. 

“Do you play the pianoforte, Miss Mattel?” Lady Catherine interjected. 

“A little, ma’am, but very poorly,” Trixie replied, as politely as she could manage. 

“Do you draw?”

“Not at all,”

“Your sisters, do they draw?”

Trixie felt a small chuckle rising at the ridiculousness of this inquisition, but fought to keep it down.

“No, ma’am, not one.”

“That’s very strange. I suppose you had no opportunity. Your mother should have taken you to town every spring for the benefit of the masters.”

“I’m sure my mother wouldn’t have minded, but my father hates town.”  
This seemed to almost satisfy Lady Catherine for a moment, leaving everyone in peace to eat their soup, until she mercilessly started her questioning again.

“Your governess has left you, I suppose.”

“No, ma’am, we never had a governess,”

Lady Catherine seemed genuinely shocked.

“No governess? Five daughters brought up at home with no governess? I never heard such a thing.” she seemed to direct the last statement at the whole table, as if hoping they would all passionately agree that five daughters without a governess was the strangest thing to happen to England since the invasion of William the Conqueror. However, they all politely refrained. 

“Your mother must have been quite a slave to your education,” Lady Catherine continued.

“Not at all.” Trixie said, hoping to put an end to this siege of questions. Unfortunately, Lady Catherine seemed even more determined.

“Your younger sisters, are they out in society?”

“Yes, ma’am, all of them,”

“All!? All five, out at once? Oh, that’s very odd. And you only the second. The younger ones out before the elder ones married? Your younger sisters must be very young,”

“Yes, indeed. My youngest is not yet sixteen. But I think it would be very hard for younger sisters not to have their share of amusement because the oldest is still unmarried. It would hardly encourage sisterly affection,”

Miss Zamo made an odd choking sound into her soup, a sort of amused laugh that threw Trixie a little off her tracks. Lady Catherine seethed at Trixie’s last remark. 

“Upon my word, you give your opinion very decidedly for a person so young. Pray, what is your age?”

Trixie laughed a little awkwardly, more self-conscious than ever. 

“With three younger sisters grown up, Your Ladyship can hardly expect me to own up to it,”

That seemed to stave her off for a while. In fact, Lady Catherine left Trixie quite alone until after dinner when the whole party sat in the parlour.

“Come, Miss Mattel, come and play for us,” she demanded, and Trixie whipped round in shock. 

“Oh no, I beg you…” she protested, seemingly unheard.  
“For music is my delight,” continued Lady Catherine grandly. “In fact, there are few people in England who possess more of a true enjoyment for music than myself, or better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.”

“Lady Catherine, I am not blessed with false modesty. When I say I play very poorly-”

“Come, Trixie.” Mr. Collins interrupted sharply. “Her Ladyship demands it.”

Trixie sighed defeatedly and made her way to the pianoforte, playing one of Mozart’s least offending sonatas with much tripping over of notes and mistakes. While she knew she was very poor at playing the pianoforte, her true passion lay in singing. She was very fond of singing, and knew herself to possess a talent to it, though she would never sing in public. Instead, she continued to plonk out the melody until she was sure Mr. Mozart would be turning in his grave. 

“How does Georgiana get along, Yekaterina?” Lady Catherine asked.

“She plays very well,” replied Miss Zamo, whom Trixie noticed out of the corner of her eye was staring at her. 

“I hope she practices,” said Lady Catherine. “No excellence can be acquired without constant practice. I’ve told Mrs. Collins this: though you have no instrument of your own, you’re very welcome to come to Rosings and play on the pianoforte in the housekeeper’s room.”

“Oh, I thank you, Your Ladyship,” Charlotte replied politely. 

“You’ll be in nobody’s way in that part of the house,” Lady Catherine continued, and the chatter faded to the background as Trixie focused on her playing. She was startled out of her bubble when Miss Zamo wandered over to stand by the instrument.

“You mean to frighten me, Miss Zamo,” Trixie said, her eyes still on the keys, “by coming over in all your state to hear me, but I won’t be alarmed. Even if your sister does play so very well.”

“I’m well enough acquainted with you, Miss Beatrice, to know that I cannot alarm you, even if I should wish it.”

“What was my friend like in Hertfordshire?” asked Colonel Fitzwilliam jovially, coming over to join them. Trixie stopped playing abruptly and looked up at both of them. 

“You really care to know? Prepare yourself for something dreadful. The first time I saw her at the assembly, she danced with nobody at all, even though partners were scarce and more than one lady was in need of a dance.”

“I knew nobody beyond my own party,” Miss Zamo remarked defensively, and Trixie snorted with derision. 

“Oh, and nobody can be introduced in a ballroom?” she snapped, perhaps a little too harshly.

“Fitzwilliam, I need you,” barked Lady Catherine, and he bobbed obediently away. 

Trixie and Miss Zamo stared at each other for a moment, then Trixie took up playing again. 

“I… do not have the talent,” said Miss Zamo quietly, “of conversing easily with people I’ve never met before.”

“Perhaps you should take your aunt’s advice,” Trixie replied, “and practice.”

\--- 

The next day, Trixie was left alone in the house. Charlotte and Mr. Collins had errands to run, so she had the whole day to her leisure. After breakfast, she decided upon writing a letter to Jane, so sat herself by the window to write. However, no words flowed to her and instead she stared dreamily out of the window, preoccupied by the calming ease of the garden. 

Suddenly the door banged open and she whipped her head round in shock at the apparent intruder. Her shock was only doubled when she saw it was Miss Zamo, seeming a little uneasy and panicked

“Uh… please, do be seated,” Trixie said, remembering her manners, but Miss Zamo only stood and fiddled with her gloves. 

“I’m afraid Mr. and Mrs. Collins have gone to the village on business,”

Miss Zamo simply nodded. 

After a few more moments of silence, she seemed to gather her courage enough to speak.

“This is a charming house,” she said, gesturing wildly around. “I believe my aunt did a great deal to it when Mr. Collins first arrived,”

“I believe so,” Trixie replied, confused out of her mind. “She could not have bestowed her kindness on a more grateful subject,”

Miss Zamo half-laughed, half-choked, still excluding an air of anxiety and discomfort. 

“Shall I call for some tea?” Trixie asked, and Miss Zamo could not have declined faster. 

Eventually the front door opened and she bobbed down in lieu of a goodbye, backing out of the room rapidly and disappearing through the door. 

Trixie stood, blinking, for a second, wondering what on earth had just happened. Charlotte, who had just come in, walked up to her. 

“What on earth have you done to poor Miss Zamo?” she asked.  
“I have absolutely no idea,” Trixie replied, bewildered. 

\---

The next day was a Sunday, and it dawned grey and gloomy. Trixie was sure it was to rain as she, Charlotte and Mr. Collins trudged down to the church in the village for Mr. Collins to give his sermon. All the things to look forward to, Trixie was sure that a sermon preached by Mr. Collins was not one of them.

Unfortunately, she turned out to be correct. He droned on and on for what seemed like hours in a dull monotone that Trixie supposed he thought was grand and inspiring. Luckily, Trixie sat next to Colonel Fitzwilliam, so there was at least a little entertainment.

“So how long do you plan to stay in Kent, Colonel?”

“As long as Zamo chooses. I’m at her disposal,”

“Everyone appears to be at her disposal,” Trixie replied off-handedly. “I wonder why she doesn’t marry and secure a lasting convenience of that kind.”

“Whomever she marries would be a lucky woman,” Fitzwilliam replied, and Trixie paused for a moment. For Miss Zamo to be so open with all her friends about her preference for women was something Trixie had so rarely seen in her cosy corner of Hertfordshire, and it surely marked something about her character. 

“She is a most loyal companion,” he continued, “from what I heard on our journey here, she recently came to the rescue of one of her friends just in time.”

One of her friends? Trixie tried to give Miss Zamo the benefit of the doubt, and assumed she had numerous friends who were recently set to marry.

“What happened?” she asked, attempting to keep her voice casual.

“She saved the man from an imprudent marriage,”

“Who was the man?” pushed Trixie, a little too loudly. 

“Her closest friend, Charles Bingley.”

Trixie felt all the blood in her veins turn to ice with shock. How dare Miss Zamo call her family imprudent? And Jane was somewhere in London, believing Mr. Bingley truly did not care for her at all. How was Miss Zamo to decide what was best for them? Her blood stopped freezing, and started to boil with anger. It was all she could do to stop her hands from shaking with fury. 

“Did… did Miss Zamo give a reason for this interference?”

“There were apparently strong objections to the lady.”  
“What kind of objections?” Trixie asked, on the verge of tears. “Her lack of fortune?”

“I think it was her family that was considered unsuitable.”

“So she separated them…”

“I believe so. I know nothing else.”

\--- 

Trixie excused herself after the sermon, on the grounds that she needed a walk after being cooped up in the house for too long. She ran and ran, in search of a quiet place to contemplate what she had just been told. However, as soon as she found a nook to sit and think, thunder rumbled overheard and a torrent of rain poured over her.  
Cursing fruitlessly, she splashed her way up the lane (which now more of a quagmire of mud) to a small stone summerhouse that would shelter her until the unwelcome showers ceased. 

She gazed out over the valley. It did little to calm her fury, and she was shocked by this. There were few times in her life when being surrounded by nature did nothing to dissipate her anger, and this, it seemed, was one of them.

She felt so indignant, she was so sick of people looking down on her due to her position, and this seemed like the offense of a lifetime. Miss Zamo thought she could dictate her poor sister’s life simply because she had more money than the Mattels did? It was so infuriating. 

A sound behind her made her gasp, and when she turned around her blood boiled more than ever.

It was Miss Zamo, drenched to the skin, looking more desperate than ever. To Trixie’s eyes, blinded by anger, she was, in that moment, the most despicable person she had ever met. 

“Miss Beatrice,” she said throatily. “I have struggled in vain and I can bear it no longer. These past months have been a torment. I came to Rosings with the single object of seeing you, I had… I had to see you. I have fought against my better judgement, my family’s expectations, the inferiority of your birth, my rank and circumstance… all these things. I am willing to put them aside and ask you to end my agony.”

“I don’t understand,”

“I love you.” Miss Zamo burst out. “Most ardently. Please do me the honour of accepting my hand.”

Trixie’s heart felt as if it was in her throat and her stomach at the same time. She felt the urge to laugh, and then to cry. Despite the raging conflict in her head, she struggled to keep her voice calm. 

“Madam. I appreciate the struggle you have been through and I am very sorry to have caused you pain. Believe me, it was unintentionally done.”

“Is… is that your answer?”

“Yes.”

“Are you laughing at me?”

“No.”

“Are you rejecting me?”

“I’m sure the feelings, which, as you’ve told me, have hindered your regard will help you in overcoming it.”

Miss Zamo looked away, swallowing hard. 

“Might I ask why, with so little endeavour at civility, I am thus repulsed?”

Trixie’s shock melted away and her anger returned to her, hot and overpowering. She unconsciously took a step towards the other woman.

“And I might as well ask why, with so evident a design of insulting me, you chose to tell me you liked me ‘against your better judgement’!”

“No, believe me--”

“If I was uncivil, then that is some excuse! But I have other reasons, you know I have!”

“What reasons?” 

“Do you think that anything might tempt me to marry the woman who has ruined, perhaps forever, the happiness of a most beloved sister? Do you deny it, Miss Zamo? That you separated a young couple who loved each other, exposing your friend to the centre of the world for ridicule, and my sister to its derision for disappointed hopes! And involving them both in misery of the acustest kind?” Trixie was sobbing now, she couldn’t help it, though she was furious at herself for appearing so weak. Her tears mingled with the rainwater on her face and she wiped at it ineffectually, all the while staring down the figure of Miss Zamo opposite her. 

“I do not deny it.” the woman said simply, and Trixie felt a laugh of overwhelming emotion bubble up in her throat. She took a few breaths and calmed herself.

“How could you do it?” 

“Because I believed your sister indifferent to him.” came the reply, and Trixie was sure she had not woken up that morning, and was still in a dream.

“Indifferent?” 

“I watched them most carefully and realised his attachment was much deeper than hers.”

“That’s because she’s shy!”

“Bingley, too, is modest, and was persuaded she didn’t feel strongly towards him.”

“Because you suggested it!”

“I did it for his own good.”

“My sister hardly shows her true feelings to me! I suppose you thought that his fortune had some bearing--”

“No!” Miss Zamo seemed almost as angry as Trixie now, in her defensiveness. “I wouldn't do your sister the dishonour! Though it was suggested--”

“What was?”

“It was made perfectly clear that an advantageous marriage--”

“Did my sister give that impression?”

“No! No!” Miss Zamo’s emotions seemed to overtake her, and she struggled to keep herself calm once more. “No. There was, however, I have to admit it, the matter of your family.”

“Our want of connection? Mr. Bingley didn’t seem to vex himself with that.”

“No, it was more than that.”

“How?” Trixie asked bluntly, and with that Miss Zamo seemed to snap. 

“It was the lack of propriety shown by your mother, your three younger sisters, and even on occasion your father!”

Her words hung heavy in the air, as another rumble of thunder crackled overhead.

“Forgive me,” she said eventually. “You and your older sister I must exclude from this.”

Trixie swayed on her feet, wanting for some reason, to cut even deeper.

“And what about Mr. Wickham?”

Miss Zamo seemed shaken to her core.

“I… Mr. Wickham?” she said, taking a step closer to Trixie.  
“What excuse can you give for your behaviour towards him?”

“You take an eager interest in that gentleman’s concerns.”

“He told me of his misfortunes,”

“Oh, yes, his misfortunes have been very great indeed!” snapped Miss Zamo angrily. They stood very close now, though for some reason neither of them were willing to pull away.

“You ruin his chances, and yet you treat him with sarcasm?”

“So this is your opinion of me. Thank you for explaining so fully. Perhaps these offenses might have been overlooked had not your pride been hurt by my honesty--”

“My pride?!”

“-- in admitting scruples about our relationship. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your circumstances?”

“And those are the words of a gentlewoman! From the moment I met you, your arrogance and conceit, your selfish disdain for the feelings of others made me realise you were the last woman in the world whom I could ever be prevailed upon to marry!”

Thunder rumbled overhead. Miss Zamo’s eyes were glassy, and shining a deeper blue than they ever had before. They stood so close, with their breaths evaporating into clouds in the space between them. Miss Zamo tilted her head, as in an attempt to try and kiss Trixie… and despite everything, she probably would have let her. 

Her head spun and she tottered on her feet, almost falling with the weight of everything she had been told in the last hour. Miss Zamo rushed forward to her, placing a hand on her arm to catch her fall. 

Despite the cold rain, Miss Zamo’s hand was warm, and Trixie hated to admit it, but… it did something to her. Something stirred in her stomach and she had a fleeting, impulsive thought that she never wanted Miss Zamo’s hand to move. The pair stood, fused together, eyes locked, until everything came flooding back to Trixie and she rushed backwards, freeing her arm. 

They looked at each other in shock for a few more seconds until Trixie could not bear it anymore. She turned round and fled, splashing mud carelessly, her tears mixing with raindrops, until she reached the house and collapsed, sobbing, into bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woof, that was rough! Stay tuned for the next chapter when things should start looking up with these two - have a great week, my darlings
> 
> xoxo


	7. A Most Illuminating Revelation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooooh! Our story's getting spicy! Coincidentally, today marks 208 years since the original novel of Pride and Prejudice was published! Enjoy reading!

Trixie lived through the next few days in a sort of dream. The conversation played in her mind over and over again, until it was hard to establish what was real and what were the fabrications of her memory. She thought of the words Miss Zamo said, how angrily she spoke of Mr. Wickham, how ardently and earnestly she declared her love.  
There were also quiet, shameful moments in the darkness of night when she thought about the glassiness of her eyes; the redness of her lips; the warmth of her hand on Trixie’s arm...

These moments consumed her. They made her question everything she had come to hold as true, and after a while she was sure she had been driven quite mad by them.

Indeed, it wasn’t until her last day staying with Charlotte and Mr. Collins that she felt like a real human again. As she packed her trunk, her head was no longer filled with Miss Zamo, it was filled with Jane, and her father, and the fields surrounding Longbourn. These things, she was certain, would bring life back to normality and put Miss Zamo in the past forever. 

“Oh, Trixie,” Charlotte sighed as the servants packed Trixie’s trunk into the carriage. “How I wish you could stay forever. Indeed, couldn’t you write home and tell them you’re to stay another fortnight? I’m sure your mother could spare you,”

“I’m sure my mother could spare me, but my father most definitely could not. Remember he’s been alone with Mrs. Mattel and my younger sisters for weeks now - he must be quite insane. Oh, but how I shall miss you, Charlotte!” she cried, flinging her arms around her best friend. They embraced for a while until Mr. Collins crept up behind them. 

“Cousin Beatrice…” he said, startling them both. Charlotte went off to tend to the carriage and left the two of them to talk. “You have seen for yourself now the happiness of our situation! Perhaps you may think that your friend has made a very fortunate alliance. It seems we were almost designed for one another, Charlotte and I,” he waved simperingly at Charlotte, who was now talking with the driver.  
She smiled a little in response and waved back, though the trained eye could tell it was more of a grimace on her face. Trixie suppressed a laugh. 

“And here I assure you, from my heart, that I most cordially wish you equal felicity in marriage one day.” 

Trixie thanked him as sincerely as she could, gave Charlotte a final hug, and stepped into the carriage, casting her eyes around for one final look. It almost seemed but a day or two since she first came. How much she had to tell - and how much she had to conceal. 

The driver was just preparing to set off, until Mr. Collins cried and clapped a hand to his forehead. 

“I almost forgot! This letter arrived for you, Beatrice. I do not recognise the handwriting, but it looks very grand!” he passed the letter through the window to Trixie, and she looked at it in confusion. Who would be writing to her? At least she had the long carriage journey to read it. 

The carriage drew away, trundling down the bumpy tracks, as Trixie unpeeled the wax seal and marvelled at the sheaf of pages that it included. She scanned the final page in hopes of seeing the signature to find out the author, and her heart leaped into her throat when she saw it was Miss Zamo. Smoothing out the first page, she began to read:

‘To Miss Beatrice Mattel,

Be not alarmed, Madam, on receiving this letter, that it contain any repetition of the sentiments of those offers which two days ago were so disgusting to you. But I must be allowed to defend myself against the charges laid against me. In particular those relating to Mr. Wickham, which, if true, would indeed be grievous, but are wholly without foundation, and which I can only refute by laying before you his connection with my family. 

Mr. Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had the management of our family’s estates. He supported my father greatly when he first emigrated from Russia, and my parents supported him in return - they were fond of him, and held him in high esteem. We played together as children. 

After his father’s early death, my father supported him at school and afterwards at Cambridge University, and hoped he would make the church his profession. But by then George Wickham’s habits were as dissolute and immoral as his manners were engaging. 

My own excellent father died five years ago. And his attachment to Mr. Wickham was to the last so steady, that he desired that a valuable family living might be his as soon as it was vacant. Mr. Wickham declined any interest in the church as a career, but requested, and was granted, the sum of three thousand pounds instead of the living. He expressed an intention of studying the law. I wished, rather than believed him to be sincere. 

After giving him the money, all connection between us now seemed to be dissolved. Being now free from all restraint, his life was one of idleness and debauchery. He gambled away the allowance within weeks, and wrote immediately begging for more. When I refused, he appeared to sever all acquaintance. But last summer, our paths crossed again, under the most painful circumstances, which I myself would wish to forget. 

My sister, Georgiana, who is nearly ten years my junior, was left under the care of Colonel Fitzwilliam and myself. Last July, she was taken out of school to Ramsgate and placed in the care of a Mrs. Young - of whose character we were most unhappily deceived. There also went Mr. Wickham, undoubtedly by a plan hatched by him and Mrs. Young. He declared passionate love for her, and with her being so loving and trusting by nature, she was persuaded to believe herself in love, and to consent to an elopement.

She was then but fifteen years old.

A day or two before the intended elopement, I joined them unexpectedly. Unable to support the idea of losing a sister whom she looked up to almost as a parent, she divulged the whole story to me at once. You may imagine what I felt, and how I acted. 

Once it was made clear Mr. Wickham would not be receiving a penny of her inheritance of thirty thousand pounds, he disappeared. I will not attempt to convey the depth of Georgiana’s despair. 

This, madam, is a faithful narrative of all my dealings with Mr. Wickham.’

Trixie let out a deep breath, and leant back in her seat. It was so much to take in. For Wickham to have fabricated so smoothly a story that smeared Miss Zamo’s name was despicable of him, and Trixie felt deeply angry at herself for believing him so easily. She shook her head to clear it of thoughts, and read on:

‘The other charge levelled against me is that I detached Mr. Bingley from your sister. I have no wish to deny this, nor can I blame myself for any of my actions in this matter.

As to my objections to the marriage, the economic situation of your family, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison to their unsavory behaviour. But, you already know my opinions on this matter. My friend left Netherfield for London, and there I engaged in the action of pointing out to him the certain evils in his choice of your sister as a prospective bride. It was not difficult to convince him of your sister’s indifference to him. I cannot blame myself for having done this much. 

There is but one part of my conduct in the affair which I do not reflect with satisfaction. That is that I concealed from him your sister’s being in town. Perhaps this concealment was beneath me. It is done, however, and it was done for the best. On this subject I have nothing more to say, and no other apology to offer. 

I know you do not feel the same way, but it was truly a pleasure to have known you. I will say this, and it is that I wish you all future happiness in any endeavor you put your heart into pursuing. 

Ты останешься в моем сердце навсегда.

Yours faithfully,

Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova (but I have heard that your father just calls me ‘Katya’, to which you are most welcome to adopt.)’

Trixie at last put the letter down, consumed with emotion. What on earth was she to make of all this now? It had been so easy before, when everything was black and white: Miss Zamo was bad, Wickham was good, and the Mattel family were endearing and harmless in their behaviour. But now, Trixie remembered how loudly her mother had squawked about Jane’s connection with Bingley, how obscenely Mary had sang, how shamelessly Lydia and Kitty paraded themselves about the dance hall. 

Two pink spots flared in her cheeks, and she sat with embarrassment consuming her like hot, icy fire. How could she go on living with this information? How was she to return to normality and pretend like the world was still as simple as it had seemed to her naive eyes?  
She decided she would content herself by telling Jane. Good, dear Jane, she would know what to do. Oh, how she longed to see Jane!

\---

The journey dragged on and on, until at last the tiny carriage drew into the wonderfully familiar scene of the driveway at Longbourn. Lydia and Kitty exploded from the house, nattering away about something or other, and Jane followed them. A huge grin spread across Trixie’s face and she leapt from the carriage, enfolding her sister in her arms. 

“Oh Jane, how I’ve missed you!” she said, and Jane hugged her back equally as ferociously. 

“I’ve missed you too! Is there any news from Kent?”

Trixie looked uneasily at her two younger sisters, and decided this was not the time.

“No. No news. But whatever’s happening here?”

“You’ve come at just the right time, Trixie. There is much chaos at Longbourn, to do with a certain regiment of soldiers sent away for the summer…” she replied, turning to Kitty and Lydia.

“Yes, you tell her, Jane! The regiment will be at Brighton for the whole summer, and we so wish to travel down with them! But Papa will not budge, and Kitty and I are fair devastated!” Lydia wailed. Trixie gave her a quick hug, strangely relieved to be back to back to her moaning sisters, and they all walked in for lunch. 

As they sat down to the meal, Trixie could tell this subject of going to Brighton was a cause for tension between the family. Lydia, Kitty and Mrs. Mattel quietly seethed with anger at Mr. Mattel, who sat serenely and innocently. 

“Won’t you speak to Papa about going to Brighton, Trixie? He always listens to your advice,” said Lydia, pushing the food around her plate. 

“You flatter me, but in any case I shouldn’t attempt to persuade him. I think it’s a very good thing that the regiment shall be removed from Meryton - and that we shall be removed from the regiment.”

“Oh! Trixie! How could you say such a thing!” cried Mrs. Mattel.

“Very easily, ma’am,” Trixie replied in a taciturn way. “If one poor company of militia should cause such havoc in our family, I can only imagine what a whole campful of soldiers would do.”

Lydia’s eyes went as round as dinner plates. “A whole campful of soldiers…” she sighed dreamily. 

“I remember when I was a girl. I cried for two days straight when Colonel Miller’s regiment went away. I thought I should have broke my heart!” Mrs. Mattel said. 

“I’m sure I shall break mine,” Lydia muttered grumpily. 

“I shall too!” echoed Kitty. 

“There, there, my dears. But if your father is determined to be cruel…” Mrs. Mattel said pointedly towards her husband, who seemed quite unaffected.

“I confess I am. I’m sorry to be breaking so many hearts, but I have not the smallest intention of yielding.” he said. 

“I shall not break my heart, Papa.” Mary added sensibly. “The pleasures of Brighton would have no charms for me. I should infinitely prefer a book.”

Lydia huffed with annoyance. 

“Mrs. Forster says she plans to go sea bathing,” Kitty said, and Lydia gasped. 

“I’m sure I should love to go sea bathing!” she said purposefully towards her father.

“A little sea bathing would set me up very nicely…” Mrs. Mattel said passive-aggressively. 

“And yet, I am unmoved.” Mr. Mattel said, dabbing his napkin around his mouth and standing up. “I’m glad you are returned Trixie. And you too, Jane.”

He left the room and Lydia whined loudly, throwing her cutlery onto her plate. 

“I want to go to Brighton!” 

\---

Trixie waited the whole day, bursting, till it was night and she could finally speak to Jane in the privacy of their bedroom. She caught hold of Jane’s arm and pulled her into bed while Jane was still plaiting her hair, unable to wait any longer. 

“Jane, I… I have something to tell you. I didn’t entirely tell the truth earlier - something did happen in Kent. And it’s a little hard to say…”

Jane sat attentively, and this gave Trixie a little courage. 

“We dined at Rosings Park many times, as I’m sure you’d expect. One night we saw Miss Zamo there, and we… we talked a little. And she proposed.”

Even Jane could not hide her shock at this. Her mouth hung open and she clutched a hand to her heart. 

“I can scarce believe it! Not that anyone admiring you should be so astonishing, but she always seemed so severe, so cold! And she was in love with you this whole time. Poor Miss Zamo.”

“I cannot feel so compassionately for her. She has other feelings which will soon drive any regard she has for me. You do not blame me for refusing?”

“Blame you? Oh no! Never.”

“I am afraid there is a little more news that must be shared. You recall Mr. Wickham, and how his story seemed to prove Miss Zamo’s villany? It is, unfortunately, not as simple as that…”

She swiftly filled Jane in on the story with Georgiana and Mr. Wickham, and Jane’s eyes grew huge with disbelief. 

“Now do you blame me for speaking so warmly of Mr. Wickham? When he was, the whole time, a scoundrel of the worst kind.”

“Not at all! How could you have known about his vicious character? If indeed he was so very bad. But I cannot believe Miss Zamo would fabricate such dreadful slander, especially involving her own sister. No, it must be true. Perhaps there has been some terrible mistake?”

Trixie laughed, hugging her sister close to her body. 

“Oh Jane, that can't do! You can’t make them both good! There is just enough merit between them to make some good sort of person. And for my part I’m inclined to believe it’s all Miss Zamo.”

“Poor Miss Zamo. Poor Mr. Wickham! There is such an expression of goodness in his countenance.”

Trixie chuckled. 

“Yes! I’m afraid one has all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it! I don’t quite know what to do! Oh, there is one point in which I need your advice. Should our general acquaintances be informed of Wickham’s true character?”

Jane looked puzzled. 

“Surely there can be no occasion to expose him so cruelly. What is your opinion?”

“That it shouldn’t be attempted. Miss Zamo has not authorized me to make it public, especially as it regards her sister. And for the rest, who would believe it? The general… prejudice against Miss Zamo is so violent, and Wickham will soon be gone. I believe we should say nothing of it at present.”

“Yes, I agree. Perhaps he is sorry now for what he has done, and is anxious to re-establish herself in the world. We must not make her desperate.”

“Oh, Jane! I wish I could think so well of people as you do!”

\---

The next day felt like the first day of summer. Even though it was only mid-April, the sky shone a bright, iridescent blue, and everything had that sort of lazy feeling as it does in summer. Trixie and Jane could do little else but spend the whole day outside, picking flowers as a pretence for soaking up the sun and chatting about nothing. Though everything seemed to be perfect, Jane was still incredibly melancholy, and Trixie tried to not mention it for as long as possible. But she soon burst. 

“You’re not happy, Jane. It pains me to see it,” she remarked, and Jane smiled a little sadly. 

“I’m afraid I still do prefer Mr. Bingley more than any man I’ve ever met. And Trixie, I really did believe he… well. I was mistaken, that’s all. I’m resolved to think of him no more. There. Enough. I shall be myself again, as if I never set eyes on him. Truly, Trixie, I promise. I shall be well. I shall be myself again! I shall be perfectly content.”

Trixie clasped Jane’s hands and brushed her hair back from her face. 

“How brave you are! I think if I had half of your grace and love, I should be quite angelic,”

Their tender moment was broken up by a shrieking from the house: Kitty and Lydia tumbled from the door, making the loudest racket they ever had. They bounced up to Trixie and Jane, with Lydia seeming ecstatic and Kitty on the verge of hysterical tears. 

“Guess what! Guess what! You’ll never guess, so I’ll tell you. Mrs Forster has invited me, as her particular friend, to go with her to Brighton! Colonel Forster is to take a house for us!” Lydia squealed, holding the letter to her chest and dancing around. 

“Is it not unfair, Trixie?” Kitty moaned. “Mrs. Forster should have asked me to go as well as Lydia! I may not be her ‘particular’ friend but I have every right to be asked as she does. And even more so for I am two years older!”

Lydia giggled a little scornfully and spotted their mother in the garden. 

“Mama! Mama! Mrs. Forster asked me to go to Brighton this summer with her!”

“Oh, Lydia, my darling! What an honour to be singled out!” cried Mrs. Mattel, running up to them. 

“I shall have to be bought new clothes! For I have nothing good to wear, and I’m sure there will be balls and parties every night!” 

“Of course you shall have new clothes, dear. I’ll ask your father at once about an allowance. We couldn’t see you disgraced in front of all the officers!”

“Oooh! All the officers!” Lydia sighed, and Kitty burst into tears, running into the house. Lydia and Mrs. Mattel were too absorbed with giggling and squealing that they didn’t even seem to notice. 

Trixie followed Kitty, hoping to give her a hug or a few comforting words, but she raced straight to her bedroom with her sobs echoing off the walls. Trixie paused by the open door of her father’s study and saw him gazing out of the window at Mrs. Mattel and Lydia’s performances. She gently knocked on the door and entered.

“I suppose you’ve heard Lydia’s news, then?” he said, without taking his eyes off the window.

“Yes,” she replied, sitting next to him. “You’d better start preparing now.”

He looked at her in confusion. 

“Preparing?”

“Yes, preparing for her reaction for when you forbid her from going.”

“My dear, I have no intention of forbidding her from going!”

Trixie was baffled. 

“What?!” she questioned loudly, standing up. 

“I understand your concern, but consider: Lydia will never be easy until she has exposed herself in some public place and here is an opportunity for her to do so! With very little expense or inconvenience to her family!”

“If you were aware of the very great disadvantages to us all, which must arise from Lydia’s unguarded and imprudent manner-- which has already arisen from it! You would judge it differently.” Trixie said, her mind still impenetrably filled Miss Zamo’s words about her family.

“Already arisen? What has she driven away? One of your lovers?” Mr. Mattel chuckled well-meaningly, and Trixie looked away, flushing. 

“I have no injuries to resent. I speak of general, not particular evils. Our… position as a family, our very respectability, is called into question by Lydia’s wild behaviour. Excuse me, I must speak plainly. If you do not take the trouble to check her, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her character will be fixed as the most determined flirt that ever made herself and her family ridiculous!”

Trixie checked to see if the door was closed, scared her passionate voice would float up the stairs and offend someone. 

“You know Kitty follows wherever Lydia leads. Don’t you see they will be condemned and despised everywhere they go? And that they will involve their sisters in their own disgrace!”

Mr. Mattel could sense Trixie’s rising concern in her voice, so stood up and enfolded her in his calming arms. 

“Don’t make yourself uneasy, my love. Wherever you and Jane are known, you will be respected and valued. And you will not in any way be disadvantaged in any way for having a couple… or, I might say three, very silly sisters. We shall have no peace at Longbourn if Lydia does not go to Brighton. Colonel Forster is a sensible man. And luckily she’s too poor to be an object of a fortune hunter.”

Trixie opened her mouth again to object, but he held up a sensible finger.

“Leave it now, Trixie. I believe all will be well.”

\---

It was another month before the militia were due to depart for Brighton, with Lydia accompanying them. During this time, she became even more insufferable than ever before, if that was even possible (though Trixie would never admit it out loud). Thankfully, her aunt and uncle came to visit, of whom she was very fond. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were extremely kind and funny, and Trixie loved seeing them. They were only at Longbourn for ten days before they departed to the Peak District over the summer, during which time Trixie became very attached to them, as they provided a keen respite from the chaos of the past few months. 

“Why don’t you come with us, Trixie?” Mrs. Gardiner said the day before they were set to leave. “We’d love to have you, and I know how fond you are of walking. What do you say to that?” she asked her husband, and he nodded enthusiastically in agreement.

“We’ve plenty of space in the carriage! It’s only for five weeks, I’m sure you can be spared here!”

Trixie grinned. “How very generous of you! I would very much wish to come, if you’re certain I won’t be a bother. I’m sure Papa will agree.”

Mr. Mattel did indeed agree it was a very sensible idea, and so Trixie and Jane hurriedly threw Trixie’s gowns into a trunk all ready for the next day. 

“I shall miss you, my dear! To be apart from you already twice this year seems too long. You must write and tell me all the interesting things that happen here.”

“I’m sure you shall receive no letters at all then - nothing happens here! But of course I shall write to you - and you must commit every landscape to memory and describe them all in detail.”

The next day, a bright and sunny morning in May, Trixie left for Derbyshire and Lydia left for Brighton. How unaware they were that when they both separately returned, things would be quite changed. In fact, they would never be the same again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy I can't wait to write the next chapter


	8. Look at the Material

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my favourite youtubers has come out as trans! So unutterably proud of her. We love you Abigail! <3
> 
> I loVed writing this chapter!! Has always been my favourite part of the book. I hope you enjoy reading it!
> 
> xoxo

The very air itself smelt different - sweeter, lighter, somehow full of hope. Trixie stood on the top of a peak overlooking a valley, with the wind lifting the tendrils of hair that had escaped its confines and tickling them against her face. All around there was no chatter of people from the village, no gossiping sisters - all she could hear was birdsong and a rushing brooke in the distance. A smile pulled at her lips and she let out a contented sigh, relaxing properly for the first time in two months, it seemed. She felt quite at home here. 

The Gardiners and Trixie had been on their way to the village where they were staying, but the horses needed watering, so the carriage had paused, at which Trixie leapt out of it and stood on the cliff edge, gazing down at the view. Her uncle walked over to her and offered her an apple, which she took gratefully and bit into, savoring the crisp sweetness.

“Not very far until we reach the village,” he said. “Only three or so miles.” 

She nodded and made her way back to the carriage, at which it drove off again. Trixie sat with her nose practically pressed against the window, desperate to see every single sight she could. Her aunt and uncle chuckled at her fondly.

“Nature and culture in perfect harmony here,” said Mr. Gardiner. “Wildness and artifice all in the one perfect country.”

“I was born and grew up here, so that I shall never disagree with!” replied his wife. 

“Where, exactly?” Trixie asked curiously. 

“At Lambton, a little town of no consequence to anyone except those fortunate to have lived in it. I think it the dearest place in the world!”

Trixie smiled warmly. “Well, then I shall never be happy until I have seen it!”

“I should also be interested to visit the big manor house a few miles from Lambton! I never did when I was a girl, and I hear it’s open to visitors these days. It’s called Pemberley, Pemberley Hall.”

A bubble grew and burst in Trixie’s chest. Pemberley was Miss Zamo’s estate.

“Ah, yes, I’ve heard of that house! Owned by some formidable Russian lady, though I can’t recall the name. Zam something. Zama--”

“--Zamolodchikova,” Trixie breathed, and her aunt and uncle looked at her in surprise. 

“You know the house?” asked Mrs. Gardiner. 

“I know the lady,” replied Trixie, and told them an edited version of what she knew of Miss Zamo. She stuck to the original story of her being rude and unpleasant, it was easier than trying to explain the nuances of their relationship. 

\---

Dinner that night was a very pleasant affair. The inn that they were staying at was small and merry, with a bright fire dancing in every grate and windows that gazed out into the valley below. 

“I think I should be quite happy to stay my whole life in Derbyshire!” Trixie declared. 

“I’m happy to hear it. Now, what do you say to visiting Pemberley tomorrow? It’s not directly in our way but only a mile or two out of it.” Mrs. Gardiner asked. 

Trixie looked away and served herself some salad. “Do you especially wish to see it?” she said, attempting to keep her voice polite and neutral, while inside she was trembling. Lord knows what would happen if she encountered its occupant while visiting there - best to stay away, Trixie thought. 

“I should have thought you would, knowing so much about it.”

“We have no business there,” Trixie protested weakly. “I should feel awkward being there without an invitation.”

“No more than in the other houses we’re to see on our holiday!” said Mr. Gardiner. 

“I shouldn’t care for it myself, Trixie, if it were merely a fine house, richly furnished. But the grounds are delightful! They have some of the finest woods in the country!” Mrs. Gardiner said. 

The serving girl came in with another dish of food, and Mr. Gardiner addressed her.

“How far are we from Pemberley, my dear?” he asked pleasantly. 

“No more than five miles, sir,” she replied, placing the steaming dish on the table. 

“The grounds are very fine, are they not?” Mrs. Gardiner added, and the maid beamed in response

“Oh, indeed, ma’am. My eldest brother is an under-gardiner there!” she replied.

“Is the family at home for the summer?” Trixie asked before she could stop herself. 

“Oh no, ma’am,” the maid answered, and Trixie felt a little relief spread through her. 

“Well!” she told her aunt and uncle. “Perhaps we shall see Pemberley after all!”

\---

The next morning was a little chilly but with a strong burst of sunlight powering through the clouds. Trixie still felt incredibly apprehensive about seeing Miss Zamo’s home - she would rather stay away from anything to do with that woman again, lest she die of embarrassment - but she had to admit, she was a little excited. 

She rushed through her breakfast and, twitching a little at her aunt and uncle’s perpetual slowness, they finally clambered into the carriage for the ride. Trixie couldn’t stop fidgeting. Her knees jogged up and down, her hands shook, and her jaw clenched and unclenched as if she was chewing on a very tough piece of gristle. She longed to see the house - see the side of Miss Zamo that the woman couldn’t control, see the portraits of her as a child, see what the servants said about her. The gentle jolting of the carriage and the comforting noises of the horses’ hooves slapping the path soothed her, and she was lulled into peace from them. 

The journey took less than a quarter of an hour, but once they had reached the gates they had to trawl through what felt like miles and miles of surrounding woodland. Trixie gazed eagerly at them, imagining walking through them every single day, finding the best hiding places to sit and read, the best trees to climb.

“I think we’ve seen woods and groves enough to satisfy even your enthusiasm for them, Trixie!” remarked her uncle, and she smiled. 

“I confess I had no idea Pemberley was such a great estate!” she replied. “Shall we reach the house itself before dark, do you think?”

“Be patient,” said Mrs. Gardiner, who was straining her neck to spot the house. “I think I see it…”

They rounded a corner, and Trixie felt all the air pushed out of her. The house was… well, it didn’t even look like a house. To Trixie’s eyes, it looked like a palace, with its dozens of columns and windows and turrets. It overlooked a lake, and the early summer sun reflected off the water, dancing in front of Trixie’s eyes and dazzling her. The walls seemed to glow a little in the sunshine, and it seemed, in that moment, entirely perfect. 

Mr. Gardiner instructed the driver to stop the coach, and for a few moments Trixie could do little else but breathe and stare up at it. Every passing second she looked at it, she seemed to notice another grandiose feature, and her head spun with the sight. 

“I think one would be willing to put up with a great deal to be mistress of Pemberley,” Mrs. Gardiner said, equally enraptured. 

“The mistress of Pemberley will have to put up with a great deal, from what I hear,” her husband replied, looking jokily at Trixie. 

“Well, she’s not likely to be anyone we know,” Mrs. Gardiner remarked, and with that all the emotions that had been bubbling and building up inside of Trixie suddenly exploded. She laughed - her real, natural laugh, and put her hands up to her face. She felt, for some reason, like dancing, and wiggled her legs up and down in a strange jig that made her aunt and uncle look at her a little strangely. 

“How do you like the house, Trixie?” Mrs. Gardiner asked.

“I like it. I like it very well indeed.” was all she could manage to say. 

\---

The inside of the house was no less impressive than its exterior - in fact, it was probably more so. Sunshine streamed in through the sparkling windows. The furnishings and decorations were a little eccentric in their style, with seemingly mismatched colours (Trixie noted a majority of red), but it somehow all worked together and the whole effect was incredibly pleasing. 

The housekeeper was a very pleasant woman, inviting them in warmly and showing them around with swelling pride. 

“That’s where Mrs. Zamolodchikova used to write her letters every morning. This was her favourite room…” the housekeeper’s narrative faded to a quiet buzz in Trixie’s head as she wandered around at her own pace, imagining Miss Zamo striding through these halls. She paused at a window on one of the top floors and gazed down, surveying the lake and its surrounding woodland. 

“And to think,” she murmured quietly to herself, “of all this I might have been mistress.”

The portrait gallery was equally charming - with walls painted white that gave off an almost ethereal effect. There were portraits of many people she didn’t recognise, old crusty men who looked as dull and stern as every crusty old man on the planet, portraits of a young girl whom Trixie assumed was Miss Georgiana, and then her eyes rested on a huge canvas in the middle of the wall. 

The painter certainly had done a fine job, she reckoned. They had accentuated Miss Zamo’s slim frame, silvery-blonde curls and glowing blue eyes to perfection, and Trixie almost felt spooked - it was as if the real woman stood before her. 

“This is the grand portrait of my Mistress. And very like her, too!” said the housekeeper, standing next Trixie. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner joined them in staring up at the portrait. 

“It’s a handsome face, but I’ve never seen the original. Is it like her, Trixie?” Mrs. Gardiner asked. 

“Oh! Does the young lady know the Mistress?” asked the housekeeper.

“Yes, a little.”

“And she is a handsome woman is she not?”

“Yes, very handsome,”

“I’m sure I know none so handsome. Nor so kind. I’ve never had a cross word from her all my life, and I’ve known her since she was four years old. I’ve always observed that those who are good-natured as children are good-natured when they grow up. Her father was an excellent man, and Miss Zamo will be just like him. The best landlady, and the best mistress. Ask any of her tenants or servants!”

Mrs. Gardiner caught Trixie’s eye, and Trixie could tell she was very confused at this praise of Miss Zamo, after every bad thing she had heard about the woman. 

“Some people call her proud, but that’s only because she doesn’t rattle away like other young women do! Now, if you’ll follow me upstairs, I can show you the drawing room.”

The housekeeper and Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner made their way upstairs, but Trixie stayed in the portrait room, wanting to process the information she’d just been told. She stared out over the landscape, trying to fathom out this impossible woman, when the sound of a pianoforte drifted down the hall and through the open door. 

It was the best piano playing she’d ever heard - mature, full of emotion, and yet steady. Curious, she followed the sound to its origin, and discovered the door to the music room was open a jot. She peered inside and saw a small blonde young woman playing the instrument. She had a suspicion this might be Georgiana, Miss Zamo’s younger sister. She didn’t want to disturb the girl, so prepared to sneak quietly off, but then something happened that shook Trixie to her core. 

Miss Zamo appeared behind Georgiana. She was grinning, and radiating happiness in a way that Trixie had never seen. Georgiana shrieked when she saw her, and gave her such a loving hug that it almost sprung tears to Trixie’s eyes, knowing how much the girl had been through. 

“Katya!! Ya skuchal po tebe!” cried Georgiana, in what Trixie presumed was Russian. 

“Ya tozhe skuchal po tebe, moya dorogaya,” replied Miss Zamo, and Trixie’s knees went a little weak. “Eta sonata zvuchala neveroyatno!”

Georgiana laughed a little shyly. “Ya prosto trenirovalsya,”

Trixie suddenly felt as if she was invading the privacy of these two sisters, so she attempted to gracefully back away. However, her foot caught on her trailing skirt and she fell backwards, making an almighty racket. From her undignified position on the floor, she caught Miss Zamo’s eyes: confused, widened and a piercing blue. Without stopping to think she gathered her skirts and bolted, slipping a little on the polished wooden floors, out of the house and down the front steps. 

She was breathing heavily: panicking with shame and embarrassment. Why did she follow the sound of the pianoforte? Why didn’t she say anything when they saw her? Why did they even come here at all?

She heard the sound of running footsteps behind her, and she didn’t even have to turn around to know it was just the person she didn’t want to see. 

“Beatrice,” Miss Zamo said behind her, and Trixie finally turned. It sounds strange to say, but she looked… happier. Healthier. Her hair shone a little brighter, her eyes glittered a little more, her body seemed a little more comfortable in itself.

“I… Miss Zamo,” she stuttered quietly in return, and then silence descended upon the pair. Trixie kept trying desperately to think of something, anything to say, but she was too dumbfounded. It was funny how this woman had consumed so many hours of Trixie’s thoughts, had lived in her head practically non-stop for months, and now she stood here, and Trixie couldn’t seem to stammer out a single word. 

“I’m so sorry to intrude,” she suddenly burst out. “We were told no one was here, that the house was empty and open for visitors, I never would have dreamed of coming if…”

“Miss Mattel, it’s perfectly alright. You do not need to explain yourself.” she smiled, and Trixie was struck by how confident she was. She might almost say… charming. Given their last interaction, the disastrous proposal, Trixie was sure the other woman would be shy and surly, but she seemed nothing of the sort. She was still a little awkward in the way she talked and stood, but Trixie saw now that was just her manner and nature, rather than a pretence or performance. 

“I hope Pemberley is not to your disliking?” she asked, and Trixie almost laughed with the ridiculousness of that question. As if anyone could be displeased with this estate.

“No, not at all,” she replied. They stood, smiling at each other, until Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner came down the front steps and joined them. 

“We were looking all over for you, Trixie!” exclaimed her aunt, clasping Trixie’s arms.

“Would you do me the honour of introducing me to your friends?” asked Miss Zamo. 

“Of course, this is my aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. We’re staying in the District for the summer.” 

The three smiled politely at each other. Trixie was baffled: had Miss Zamo been replaced by some stranger who smiled politely? She seemed a completely different person to the sullen, angry woman who Trixie had met back in November. 

“I’m delighted to make your acquaintance, sir, madam,” Miss Zamo said, bowing respectfully. “Where are you staying during your travels?”

“The Rose and Crown Inn, in Lambton. I grew up in the town as a girl,” said Mrs. Gardiner, who seemed quite amused with the charming young woman before her. 

“Yes, of course. Delightful village. I remember running from Pemberley to Lambton almost every day when I was a girl during horse-chestnut season. There was one very fine tree there,”

“Oh, by the smithy! On the green!”

“The very one,” Miss Zamo replied jovially. “Mr. Gardiner, do you care for fishing?”

“Indeed I do! When I get the chance,”

“If you have the time, you must come and fish in my trout stream. I’ll supply you with tackle and rods, of course. We could walk down there now, if you had the time!”

Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner agreed enthusiastically, and Miss Zamo walked with Mr. Gardiner down to the lake, talking excitedly all the while. Mrs. Gardiner caught Trixie’s arm. 

“Is this the proud woman you told us of? She is all ease and friendliness, no false dignity at all!”

“I’m as astonished as you are! I can’t imagine what has affected this transformation…”

“Can you not?” Mrs. Gardiner said, half-teasingly, half-meaningfully, and Trixie pretended not to understand. 

When they reached the lake, Miss Zamo left Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner talking by it and walked over to Trixie. 

“Miss Mattel, I have a request to make of you, but you must tell me if it is too much of an imposition.”

“You must tell me at once! I’m very curious,”

“I… would very much like for you and your family to dine here tomorrow evening. Mr. Bingley and his sisters will be joining us,”

“Oh, I should like to see him very much! It seems too long since we last talked.”

“Also, my sister, Georgiana - who you heard playing earlier - has been pestering me to introduce the two of you for months now. Would you be persuaded to join us? I completely understand if you have prior engagements, or…”

“Miss Zamo, I would be delighted to join. Your sister sounds a very lovely young woman. If her character is half as extraordinary as her musical talents she would be a very good friend.”  
Trixie didn’t know why she accepted so readily. Something about the version of Miss Zamo that stood before her made her more comfortable, more ready to joke and laugh. She felt as if she were talking to an old friend, not someone who, an hour ago, she was determined to never speak to again. 

“Excellent, most excellent.” 

“Thank you. I shall be glad to see you. I think we must take our leave now, but it was truly a delight to see you, Miss Zamo.”

“Please,” the other woman said, a smile pulling at her red lips, “call me Katya.”

“If you wish... Katya.” she said, rolling the name round in her mouth. 

“Shall I see you back to your carriage, Miss Mattel?”

“Please,” Trixie said in return, almost as a joke, “call me Trixie.”

“Very well,” said Katya, in a way that Trixie was sure she would think of in her late-night dreams, “Trixie.”

\---

Nerves were exploding in Trixie’s stomach like a storm. Her hands were trembling and sweaty - as soon as she wiped them on her gown, they were damp again within seconds. Thank goodness for gloves. She knew why she was so nervous: to spend half an hour with Miss Zamo - Katya - was one thing, but to spend a whole evening with her, in her house? Why, oh why, did she say yes so quickly? She was mentally cursing herself as the carriage drew up to the huge front steps of Pemberley. 

Three figures tumbled out of the front doors, and Trixie recognised two of them as Miss Zamo and Mr. Bingley. She was so glad to see him again, it had been far too long. 

“Miss Mattel!” he cried merrily, helping her from the carriage. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner followed her, gazing in wonder at how beautiful Pemberley looked at night time. “I can’t tell you how pleased I was when Zamo told me you were not five miles from the house. I hope you’re well?”

“Very well, thank you!” she replied, as they walked towards the house. 

“And your sisters? Are they still all at Longbourn?” he was trying to keep his voice calm and pleasant, Trixie sensed, but she could tell there was another question hidden subtextually beneath his words.

“All but one,” she said, and she saw his face fall minutely. “My youngest sister Lydia is at Brighton for the summer,”

“Ah!” he said, and Trixie saw him almost glow with happiness at the news that a certain older sister was still unmarried. “It seems far too long since we last talked. How many months now?”

“I think we last made acquaintance in December, at the ball at Netherfield,”

“Indeed! Do you know, I can’t remember a happier time than those short months I spent in Hertfordshire.”

They had reached the front door, where Miss Zamo and her sister stood. 

“This is my sister, Georgiana,” said Miss Zamo pleasantly, and the girl bowed down low in polite greeting. 

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to finally be meeting you!” she said, and Trixie took an instant liking to her. “My sister has told me so much about you, I feel as if we are friends already!”

Trixie blushed a little at the thought of Miss Zamo talking about her, and Miss Zamo seemed equally embarrassed. 

“I heard you playing yesterday!” Trixie told Georgiana. “It was absolutely beautiful! You must be very fond of music,”

“I am extremely fond. Katya gave me the pianoforte you heard me playing - which she shouldn’t have,”

“Yes, I should have!”

The group laughed. 

“Well, I should love to hear you play this evening. Katya says you play so beautifully.”

“I’m afraid your sister has grossly exaggerated my talents, but I should be honoured to play for you anyway,”

\---

Dinner was an extremely pleasant affair. Their chatter was light and friendly, with Bingley telling endless funny stories about London society, and Georgiana divulging tales of things that happened at school - soon the whole table was rocking with laughter. Trixie was sure she had never felt so warm and comfortable in her whole life. She had an even bigger surprise when dessert was served.

“I had my cook make honey cake,” Miss Zamo said, smiling at Trixie. “It’s your favourite, isn’t it?”

Trixie was a little speechless. “Yes, but… how could you possibly know…”

“I heard you talking about it once at a party,” she shrugged, as if it wasn’t one of the kindest things anyone had ever done for Trixie. She grinned, and took a bite, feeling the sweetness spreading all over her body. 

“Oh, honey…” she sighed unconsciously, and everyone chuckled. 

Her eyes connected with Miss Zamo’s, and she felt something odd stirring in her stomach. Something that was sparked by her soft blonde waves of hair, and slightly flushed cheeks, and red, red lips. Her tongue darted out to wet them, and Trixie could almost feel her brain explode like a firework. She was fixated on Miss Zamo’s lips, and her eyes, and her body…

Suddenly she realised it was probably a bit conspicuous that she was staring, glassy-eyed, at Miss Zamo’s lips and she jerked herself out of it, staring stiffly straight ahead. Now was not the time. 

\---

“Now, Miss Mattel. We really must hear you play! I insist!”

They had finished dinner, and Georgiana was pushing Trixie in the direction of the pianoforte. She felt a little awkward that Bingley’s sister Caroline had joined them unexpectedly after they’d eaten (she never quite felt safe when pinned under Miss Bingley’s steely gaze), but finally allowed Georgiana to sit her on the stool and thrust sheet music into her hands. 

She prepared to play the usual thing that girls play at dinner parties, something insipid and harmless, but she suddenly felt courage strike through her like a lightning bolt. She was going to sing. She rustled up the pages for ‘Voi, Che Sapete’ from The Marriage of Figaro, one of her favourite pieces, opened her mouth, and began to sing. 

She always knew she loved singing, and had a mild talent for it, but this performance seemed almost electrical in its nature. As her voice swooped to reach the high notes, she felt goosebumps ripple on her arms, and it wasn’t the temperature of the room. She had a feeling the cause was to do with a certain someone’s pair of eyes that were fixated on her, burning, crackling. This song was a love song, but romance seemed to have been left at the door. When Trixie sang it, it was a song of desire, of yearning, of feelings screaming out to be fulfilled. And when she had finished, and flicked her eyes over to the woman in the corner, the desire, the yearning, the feelings were almost halfway to being fulfilled. 

Everyone was politely clapping her, but she only half-registered the noise until Georgiana put a hand on her shoulder. 

“That was beautiful, Trixie!” she whispered, in awe. “Katya never said you sang so well!”

“She’d never heard me before,” Trixie replied, still trembling. “I’ve never sang in front of anyone,”

Georgiana gasped.  
“Never?! Goodness, how lucky we are.”

“And I am about to be even luckier. I long to hear you play now!”

“Me? In front of all these people?”

“If I can do it, you can do it. Here, what about this piece?”

Georgiana smoothed the pages and started playing: virtuosic and effortless, while Trixie wandered to the chaise-longues to join in the conversation. 

“Pray, Miss Mattel, are the militia still at Meryton?” asked Caroline Bingley, her eyes narrowed ever so slightly in a way designed to perfectly disconcert whoever she was talking to. 

“No, they have moved to an encampment at Brighton for the summer,” Trixie replied, as pleasantly as she could.

“Oh, that must be a great loss for your family,” sighed Miss Bingley, a little too sympathetically.

“We’re enduring it as best we can,” said Trixie, praying that someone would retrieve her from this conversation. However, if there was one thing Miss Bingley could never do, it was stop talking. 

“I should have thought one gentleman’s absence would have caused particular pangs,” she said, loudly and deliberately. “Mr. Wickham?”

A lot of things happened at once at the mention of this name: Georgiana hit several keys at once, no doubt with trembling fingers. Miss Zamo half-rose from her chair with shock and caution, ready to defend. Miss Bingley smirked at this reaction, ever so pleased with herself. 

Trixie couldn’t leave poor Georgiana on her own. “I’m so sorry, I’ve been neglecting you. How can you play with no one to turn the pages?”  
She hurried back over to the pianoforte and placed a reassuring hand on the girl’s shoulder, hoping to offer some comfort through the wordless action. Miss Zamo slid back into her chair: the danger had passed. 

\---

Almost too quickly, the evening was over. Trixie and her aunt and uncle walked down the steps to a chorus of goodbyes and goodnights, waving until they thought their arms would drop off. It wasn’t until they were back in the carriage until Trixie realised what a momentous evening that had been. She stared out of the window, and managed to catch one last glimpse of Miss Zamo’s face before the carriage drew away. That face would return to her, guiltily, late at night. 

\---

The next day, Trixie found herself constantly drifting off into daydreams, from which she could only recover from until someone gently shook her shoulder. She spent hours standing on the huge hills that surrounded the village, gazing out onto the moors, the wind whipping her hair. When she eventually tottered back to their room, she found the post had arrived, bringing two envelopes addressed to her in Jane's neat, looping hand. 

“We’ll leave you to your letters, dear. We’ll walk to the church and back and call back in an hour or so,” said Mrs. Gardiner, kissing her fondly on the head. 

“I hope you enjoy your walk! Goodbye,” Trixie said. She waited until they had safely vacated, then hungrily ripped off the wax seal of the letter dated first. She was craving for the clarity that Jane was sure to provide, and darted her eyes around the words. However, she was soon taken aback. The parchment was splattered with what could only be tear stains, and the handwriting trembled intermittently up and down. These were not the writings of a Jane who was happy.

‘My dearest Trixie,

I wish I could take the time to ask you if your holiday is as nice you hoped it would be. I wish I could talk about such pleasantries. But something has occurred of a most unexpected and serious nature. Be not alarmed - we are all well - what I have to say relates to poor Lydia. 

We received a letter a midnight last night, after we had all gone to bed, from Mrs. Forster. She told us that Lydia had eloped to Gretna Green (in Scotland, where a girl can be married under sixteen years of age without her father’s permission) with one of the officers. To tell the awful truth, it was Mr. Wickham. To have the youngest daughter run off, unmarried, without the consent of her family, will surely be the ruin of us. You can imagine our shock - to Kitty, however, it did not seem a wholly unexpected event. 

I am so very sorry to deliver this news. So imprudent a match, on both sides! But I’m willing to hope the best, and that his character has been misunderstood. His choice is disinterested at least. He must know that our father can give him nothing. 

We expect them soon, returned from Gretna as man and wife. But I must conclude, I cannot be away from our poor mother for long. I shall write again as soon as there is news.

All my love, 

Jane.’

Trixie sniffed ferociously, a tear sliding down her face. She wished she could think as optimistically as Jane, and believe him truly in love with Lydia. But she had an awful, sinking feeling that he eloped with her for one thing, and once he had obtained it, he would discard her thoughtlessly, leaving her and the Mattel family ruined. Trixie burst into violent sobs, contemplating this dreadful future. She ripped open the second letter, needing to know the developments. 

‘My dearest Trixie, 

I hardly know what to write, but I have bad news! Imprudent as a marriage would be, we now fear worse! That it has not taken place - that Wickham never intended to marry Lydia at all!

Colonel Forster says he fears Wickham is not to be trusted. They have been traced as far as Clapham. Our father has gone with Colonel Forster to try and find them.

Dearest Trixie, I cannot help but beg you to return. The looming possibility that they may never marry is getting closer every day, and I need you here so desperately. 

All my love,

Jane.’

Trixie stood up too rapidly, and all the blood rushed to her head. Through her haze of dizziness and tears, she vaguely heard a knock at the door. A figure entered, and she expected it to be Mr. Gardiner. 

“Oh, uncle! We must leave at once, I am urgently needed back at Longbourn--” she began, but stopped stupidly in the middle of her sentence. It was Miss Zamo. 

“Trixie?! What’s the matter?” Miss Zamo said urgently, her eyes wide. She helped Trixie into a chair and covered Trixie’s cold hands with her warm one. Trixie was mortified for Miss Zamo to see her in such a state, but she didn’t say anything. She couldn’t bear for the other woman to move her hand. 

“Are you ill? Is… is your family well?”

“I’m fine. Truly.” Trixie said, wiping her face clumsily on her sleeve, until she felt Miss Zamo pressing a handkerchief into her palm. “I’m only distressed by some terrible news I have just received from Longbourn.” she broke into a fresh wave of unstoppable tears, and Miss Zamo looked pained. 

“It cannot be concealed from anyone, I suppose. My youngest sister has left all her friends, her family and reputation and eloped. She has thrown herself into the power of Mr. Wickham.”

She saw Miss Zamo’s throat bob as she swallowed hard. 

“They have run away together from Brighton. You know him too well to doubt the rest. She has no money, no connections, nothing that can tempt him.”

Miss Zamo stood up suddenly, placing her hands over her face. 

“When I think I could have prevented it!” Trixie continued. “I, who knew who he was! Had his character have been known, this would not have happened! But it is all too late now.”

“I am grieved indeed.” Miss Zamo said, facing away. “Grieved, and shocked. How far has she been traced?”

“As far as London, but--”

“And what is being done?” Miss Zamo strode around the room. Trixie was a little taken aback by her passion in this affair. “What is being done to recover her?”

“My father has gone to London. And Jane writes to beg my uncle’s immediate assistance. I hope we shall leave within half an hour. But what can be done? I know very well there is nothing that can be done,” she floundered helplessly. “How are they even to be discovered? I have not the smallest hope. She is lost forever, and my whole family must partake in her ruin and disgrace.” 

Miss Zamo crossed over to the door, and Trixie got up and followed her. 

“I’m afraid you have long been craving my absence,” she said, a little awkwardly. “Please allow me to bestow my best wishes upon you.” 

She paused for a moment, then gave Trixie an odd little hug. Trixie closed her eyes, soaking it in. All too quickly, it was over. Miss Zamo nodded stiffly, retrieved her hat, and left the room. 

Trixie looked sadly at the door that had just closed.

“I shall never see her again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you don't understand why Lydia eloping is such a big deal, for a man and woman (heteronormative, ik) to live together, unmarried, was unthinkable. It would bring shame on every single person in the family and taint the name in society forever. In Scotland, you could get married under the age of 16 without your father's permission, so many young couples would run away to Scotland to elope. Gretna Green was the closest to the border you could get while still technically in Scotland, so it became a sort of hub for young kids to run away and get married. Trixie thinks she'll never see Katya again bc it was shameful to even associate with a dishonoured family, especially rich people 
> 
> Translations of Russian:
> 
> Katya!! I missed you!
> 
> I missed you so much, my darling. That sonata sounded incredible.
> 
> I was just practicing. 
> 
> Love you all! Stay tuned!


	9. The Nightmare Continues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, I am so so sorry this took so long! I've been so busy, I started a new job, and it's been so hectic. But I'm proud of this chapter and I hope you enjoy it! Much love to you all

The next few hours were a hurried blur of packing, preparing the carriage and explaining the situation to her aunt and uncle. Trixie barely had time to draw breath. 

“Even if what you say of Wickham is true,” said Mrs. Gardiner, walking beside Trixie as they carried their bags to the door, “I cannot believe it of Lydia,”

“I can,” said Trixie darkly. “Ever since the militia were stationed at Meryton, there has been nothing but officers, love and flirtation in her head!”

“We must not assume the worst,” said her aunt calmly. “It may yet be that this is all a misunderstanding. Or perhaps some passing folly that her friends can clear up, and will all be forgotten.”

Trixie closed her eyes, wishing she could have a little of her aunt’s optimism.

“It is possible, Trixie!”

“Indeed it is!” cried Mr. Gardiner, joining them.”Consider: why would a young man form a design against a girl who is by no means unprotected or friendless, and who is staying with the Colonel’s family? Look at it any way you like, the temptation is not worth the risk. I still have reason to believe there may still be some good in this yet.”

“Not perhaps of risking his own interest. But I do believe him capable of risking everything else.”

They all stepped into the carriage, with Trixie blinking back tears of frustration and sadness. She knew, deep down, that this situation was almost irreparable. She knew Lydia and she knew Wickham, and the simple fact of knowing them both was enough to tell her that optimism was a vice. However, she loathed to destroy Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner’s hopes, so instead she gazed out of the window, as she did on the day they arrived.  
How different the world was now! Despite herself, her mind strayed to Miss Zamo. A few weeks ago, she would have thought that the woman would eagerly run to town and spread rumours of the Mattel family to anyone who would listen, dirtying their name with glittering malice. Now, she truly believed she would keep the information close and quiet - and for that she had infinite gratitude. 

Looking out of the window, her anxieties were lulled a little. Everything seemed so small and insignificant compared to the wild majesty of the moors and hills. With a silent promise to herself that she would return here one day, she let the carriage rock her to a gentle sleep, worn out from worrying. 

\---

She was hardly expecting a fanfare when she returned home. She knew everyone would be preoccupied with Lydia, but she had to admit she was a little disappointed when she stepped out of the carriage and no one batted an eyelid. In fact, the only person who even noticed her return at all was Jane. The second she saw her sister, she raced forward and threw herself into Trixie’s arms.

“Oh, Trixie!” she gasped, already half-sobbing. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you. Thank you, thank you for coming so quickly! I didn’t expect you for another day at least!”

“We left as soon as I got your letter, we didn’t even stay another night. How could I stay there, with this weighing on my conscience? Has anything been heard?”

“No, not yet,” said Jane, taking Trixie’s coat and bonnet from her. “But now Mr. Gardiner is here I hope all will be well. Our father left for town on Tuesday and we’ve heard from him only once to tell us he arrived in safety.”

“How’s Mama?” asked Trixie, peeling off her gloves. 

Jane looked grave. 

\---

Mrs. Mattel reclined in an armchair beside her bed, clad in a nightgown and several layers of lacy outer garments, flapping herself with a handkerchief and wailing the house down. It really was a pitiful sight. 

Everyone piled into the room: Mary, Kitty, Jane and Trixie, and Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, whom  
Mrs. Mattel reached out for at once. 

“Oh, Trixie! Oh, Brother! We are all ruined, doomed forever! Oh, my poor Lydia!”

Trixie’s stomach twisted in on itself: there is a rare kind of unpleasantness in seeing your own mother in such a dreadful state, and Trixie felt even worse in knowing that she might have prevented it in disclosing Mr. Wickham’s character. However, she knew to say anything now would only complicate matters, so she kept her mouth shut in a sickly silence. 

“If only Mr. Mattel would have taken us all to Brighton, none of this would have happened.” Mrs. Mattel continued. “I blame those Forsters! I’m sure there must have been some great neglect on their part. For she is not the kind of girl to do that sort of thing! And now here is Mr. Mattel gone away, and I know he will fight Wickham, and he will be killed, and then what is to become of us?”

She paused to blow her nose heavily on her handkerchief.

“Those Collinses will turn us out before he is cold in his grave. And if you are not kind to us, Brother, I don’t know what we shall do…” she broke out into an almighty wail, waving her arms around. Mr. Gardiner finally took pity on her, and took her hands in his. 

“My dear Sister, please calm yourself,” he said, in such a comforting tone Trixie felt a sudden impulse to run up and hug him. “Nothing truly dreadful will happen! I shall be in London tomorrow morning and there we shall consult as to what is best to be done.”

“Yes, that is it!” said Mrs. Mattel “You must find them, and if they be not married you must make them marry. But above all keep Mr. Mattel from fighting!”

“Mama, I’m sure he does not mean to fight,” said Jane, crossing over to her mother and placing a calming hand on her shoulder. Mrs Mattel swatted her off. 

“Oh, yes he does! And Wickham will kill him for sure if you cannot prevent it, Brother! You must tell him what a dreadful state I’m in. Oh, I have such tremblings and flutterings all over me! Oh, and--” she sat up suddenly as if what was she about to say were the most important words of all, “tell Lydia she’s not to give any directions about wedding clothes until I’ve seen her! For she does not know which are the best warehouses!”

She lay back on the chair, wailing and fussing, and the three other Mattel sisters huddled around her like well-meaning birds. Trixie could bear it no longer, and dashed out of the room before anyone noticed. She only meant to run out of the room, but some great impulse within her could not stop running. She ran and ran, until she had reached the fields where she walked after rejecting Mr. Collins. How long ago that seemed now. She suddenly wondered if she could have prevented this by marrying Mr. Collins. Or she could have prevented it by not inviting Mr. Wickham to play cards with them when they first met. Or by treating Lydia with a little more kindness as a child. Her head was flooded with possibilities, ways she could have stopped this apocalyptic event from happening, and suddenly she was hating herself for things that happened ten years ago. It all boiled down to if, if, if. 

\---

Trixie could hardly wait until it was time for bed. That was the only time Jane and her could talk properly, with no pretenses. Jane had hardly finished pulling on her nightgown before Trixie had grabbed hold of her hand and was tugging her into bed. 

“Now. Tell me everything about it that I don’t already know. What did Colonel Forster say? Had they no apprehension about anything before the elopement took place?”

Jane ducked her head a little, and fished a letter out of the bedside drawer. 

“Colonel Forster did admit he suspected some partiality on Lydia’s side, but nothing to give him any alarm. Mrs. Forster gave us this - a note Lydia left to her the night that she went away.”

Jane handed it to Trixie, who smoothed it out with shaking hands. She instantly recognised Lydias’s scrawling, looping handwriting, and she felt a small twang of sadness in remembering her younger sister. 

“‘My dear Harriet, 

How you will laugh when you know where I’ve gone! I cannot help laughing myself at your surprise tomorrow morning, as soon as I am missed. I am going to Gretna Green, and if you can’t think with whom, I would think you a simpleton, for there is but one man in the world I love! Don’t send them word at Longbourn of my going. It will make the surprise all the greater when I write to them and sign my name Lydia Wickham! What a good joke it will be - I can scarcely write for laughing!’”

Trixie dropped the sheaf of paper on the bed, anger flashing in her eyes. 

“Thoughtless girl! What a letter to have written at such a moment. But at least it shows that she believed Wickham’s purpose was marriage, whatever he might have persuaded her to afterwards. Our poor father! How he must have felt it.”

Jane picked up the note and shoved it a little carelessly back into the bedside drawer.  
“I never saw anyone so shocked. He couldn’t speak for ten minutes. Mother was taken ill with hysterics, the whole house was in confusion. The women in the village have been very kind, offering their services,”

For some reason, Trixie grew very angry at this. A mixture of shame, embarrassment at her family, rage that she was dragged away from the Lake District, fear for what was to happen in the future, and annoyance that she could not get a certain woman’s pair of piercing blue eyes out of her mind. 

“They had better stay at home!” she found herself snapping. “Assistance is impossible, and consolation is insufferable! Let them triumph over us at a distance and be satisfied.”

“Trixie!” exclaimed Jane, taken aback by her sister’s explosion. “That is unkind. They mean only well.”

Trixie let out a huge sigh of breath and ran a hand over her face. 

“Yes. I’m sure they do,” she said, a little calmer. “I’m sorry. It’s just I can’t help but be… oh, Jane. Jane, I’m sorry, but do you not see that more things have been ruined by this business than Lydia’s reputation?”

Almost as soon as she said it she regretted it. Jane’s eyes crinkled in confusion and she tilted her head. 

“What do you mean?”

For a second, Trixie considered telling her. She opened her mouth. And closed it again. 

“... Nothing. I’m simply tired and frustrated. I’m sure I shall be much better in the morning. Goodnight, my darling.”

Blowing out the candle, she huddled down beneath the blanket and scrunched her eyes shut. How deeply she wished she could be better in the morning. 

\---

The family lived through two more weeks of this grinding, consuming anxiety. Trixie’s hands had a constant tremble, and her eyes felt black and shiny, the pupils permanently dilated. Every time she went into Meryton she felt every single pair of eyes follow her, as if the whole village had just been talking about her. 

Finally, after the longest two weeks of the Mattel family’s lives, Mr. Mattel returned home. As soon as she saw his carriage trundling slowly up the driveway, she felt she could breathe again. It only just dawned on her how much she had missed her father, and she grabbed Jane’s hand to run up to his carriage together. 

“Papa!” she cried jovially, expecting hugs and laughter. However, his face was grave and pinched, his shoulders sloping forwards and his movements stiff. 

“Not now, Jane,” he said. “Not now, Beatrice.” He brushed them aside and walked straight into his office, without so much as glancing up at his two daughters. Trixie felt her lips begin to tremble as they always did when she was about to cry, and she sucked in a huge gulp of air to prevent any unwelcome tears. What good would crying do? She needed to be strong. 

They left Mr. Mattel undisturbed for the rest of the day, guessing that if he wanted to talk to them he would call for them. They left cups of tea outside his office door, and tiptoed around outside, hoping to be useful. 

He didn’t emerge from his study until the women were sitting down to breakfast the next morning, at which he crossed straight over to the table, gulped down three cups of tea and ate four slices of toast without saying a word, then beckoned for Trixie and Jane to follow him. The three of them made their way into a quiet corner of the garden, where they all sat down and Mr. Mattel finally opened his mouth to speak. 

“What a bloody mess this all is.” he said, in his deadpan, monotonous way, and Trixie felt such a strange relief that she burst out laughing and hugged him. 

“Such a mess,” he repeated, clutching Trixie tightly. “But at least there might be a little light at the end of the tunnel. Your uncle Gardiner really is a sort of angel of a man. He’s written a letter, explaining.” He took a letter from his jacket and passed it to Jane would gasped joyously. 

“He’s found them! They are married!” she exclaimed, looking happily at first Trixie, her father, who only tutted and gestured for her to open the letter. Scrabbling it open, Trixie read aloud:

“‘My dear Brother, 

At last I am able to report on the business of Lydia and Wickham. They are not married, nor I can I find there was any intention of doing so…’”

Trixie’s voice trailed off, and Mr. Mattel got up, and started feverishly pacing up and down. 

“‘... but if you perform the engagements, I’m sure they can be persuaded into matrimony. All that is required of you is to ensure she will inherit the sum of £5000 upon your death, and during the remainder of your life, allow her £100 per annum.’”

“So little?” Jane questioned, and Mr. Mattel laughed hollowly. 

“Read on, Trixie,” he said. 

“‘You may have heard of his unpleasant reputation: gambling debts, drunkenness and lewdness. However, I am pleased to say that Wickham’s situation is not as volatile as it is generally believed to be! There will be some money to settle on my niece once all his debts are cleared. We’ve judged it best that they are best to be married in London--’”

“Oh, poor Kitty will be upset not to be a bridesmaid,” Jane said. 

“‘-- Of which I hope you will approve. Be sure to write back soon regarding the financial settlement. 

Yours, Henry Gardiner.’”

Trixie put the letter in her lap and slumped back a little. 

“Have you replied?” she asked. Mr. Mattel shook his head.

“No, but I need to. I believe this means that Lydia and that damned wretch Wickham will be married within no more than ten days.”

Trixie and Jane sighed with relief and clasped hands, happiness washing over the pair. However, when Trixie looked back at her father, his face was still grave and solemn. 

“What’s the matter, Papa? Surely this is good news?”

“Good news it may be, but there are two questions I need to ask. One is, how much money your uncle gave for this to be done. And the second is, how am I ever to repay him?”

\---

Finally, the nightmare ended. A week later Mr. Gardiner wrote to tell them that Lydia and Wickham were, at last, married. For the whole day, Longbourne was a mess of squealing sisters rushing up and down the stairs, ecstatic with the news. The four of them piled into Mrs. Mattel’s room to tell her, and watched her face light up. 

“Oh, my good, kind Brother! I knew it would be. I knew he would manage everything. Oh, my dear Lydia! Oh, but the clothes! And she must be married from Longbourne.”

“Mama, you know that’s not possible. She must be married in London, you must see that,” Trixie said gently. 

“I do not see that! Why should I see that? She must be married in Meryton where all her friends can see her and her sisters can be bridesmaids!”

“Mama, she’s been living, unmarried, with Mr. Wickham in London. If she were to arrive home unmarried still…”

Mrs. Mattel finally sighed with defeat. “I suppose, when you put it like that. But it is all very vexing! And your uncle has been most high-handed, I don’t see why he should take so much upon him.”

“Mama, we’re greatly indebted to Mr. Gardiner. He must have lain out a great deal of money to pay off Mr. Wickham’s debts. More than we can ever repay,” Jane protested weakly. 

“Oh, well, I am so happy! A daughter married! And only just sixteen! Oh, how well this has all turned out!”

\---

Many, many miles away, in a dark cramped house in London sat a small, slender woman. Her top hat was thrust carelessly on a table, and her head was bent over a desk littered with sheafs of paper. Her candle was burning out, and her back ached, and her head pounded, but she worked on into the night: arranging, paying money, tracking down a man who had wronged her so badly. And she did it all with only one thought in her head: a woman, named Beatrice Mattel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is the last, if I don't decide to drag it out! So sorry this one took so long, next one should be out a lot sooner
> 
> Hope you're all doing well xxx


	10. Your Hands are Cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS! Y'ALL! IT'S THE LAST CHAPTER!
> 
> I was kinda sad that this is over, that's why it took so long to write (also it's so long omg), but I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I hope you life it too!
> 
> Enjoy, and have good lives! I shall see you for another weird-ass Braxiatel Collection very soon!

A modest carriage trundled down the driveway to Longbourne. To the expert eye, it was very obviously cheap and tattered - the wheels were a little loose, the paintwork was peeling and it was pulled by a very tired looking donkey. However, with the welcome its occupants received, one would have thought it was a carriage for the King. 

“Lydia! Oh, my darling child!” squawked Mrs. Mattel, tumbling out of the front door and frantically waving a handkerchief. She seemed to be exploding with love and devotion for her youngest daughter, jumping up and down, with her face a mask of delight. Trixie was glad to see her so happy, but she hung back a little reservedly in the doorway. It had been many months since she’d spoken to Mr. Wickham, and that was before she’d learned the revelation about his terrible nature. She was a little scared she’d break the pretense and say something untoward to him. 

Mr. and Mrs. Wickham stepped down from the carriage. Mr. Wickham was dressed rather plainly in a top hat and battered coat, but Lydia looked like a child who’d raided her mother’s dressing-up basket: pearls and lockets dangled from her neck, feathers adorned her lace bonnet, and her dress must have weighed a hundred pounds the way it was decorated with fripperies and details. She’d only been married a week, and yet she carried herself with a certain air that implied she thought herself above all her sisters, and even her parents. 

“Lord, it seems an age since we were at Longbourne! And here you all are, just the same,” she joked, thrusting her parasole at her husband. 

“Oh, my Lydia, at last! Oh, I do believe you’ve grown! Oh, how we’ve missed you!” Mrs. Mattel squealed, enfolding her daughter in her overbearing arms. 

“We’ve been far too merry to miss any of you! Well, here we are. Haven’t I caught myself a handsome husband?” she said, tucking her arm in the crook of Mr. Wickham’s elbow. 

“Indeed you have, my love. You are very welcome, Sir!”

“You are all goodness and kindness ma’am, as always,” he said pleasantly, bowing low. Trixie’s stomach stirred queasily. 

“Oh, let me give you a kiss, then!” exclaimed Mrs. Mattel, trapping him in her arms and placing a loud kiss on his cheek. Mr. Mattel stood in front of the happy couple, welcoming but admittedly less excitable than his wife. 

“Well. Shall we go in?” he asked, giving them a fleeting smile. Jane automatically stepped forward to take the place at the front of the party after her parents, but Lydia tapped her on the shoulder with her parasole. 

“No, Jane! I am a married woman: I take your place now!” she said smugly, pulling her husband tight to her side. Jane obediently stepped back, sharing a silent glance with Trixie.

“‘Mrs. Wickham!’” Lydia cried. “Lord, how droll that sounds!”

\--- 

After a surprisingly less frosty lunch than Trixie was expecting, Lydia suggested they all walk to Meryton. She claimed she needed to buy some new ribbons for a bonnet, but Trixie knew she just wanted to show off her husband - and some part of her thought, begrudgingly, what was wrong with that? She was starting to recognise in herself where she could be far too dismissive and prejudiced, and she found it very hard to let go of a grudge once it had formed. She was starting to recognise these qualities, and slowly, painstakingly, attempting to let them go. 

The four Mattel sisters and Mr. and Mrs. Wickham set off across the huge rolling fields towards Meryton, Lydia and Kitty chatting away at the speed of light. Mr. Wickham eventually sped ahead, with the excuse of ‘collecting firewood’, and Lydia sidled up to Trixie. 

“Well! How do you like my husband, Trixie? I believe you envy me - was he not once a favourite of yours?”

“Not at all, I assure you,” replied Trixie, laughing a little at a joke Lydia couldn’t understand. 

“What a pity we didn’t all go to Brighton. Then I could have found husbands for all my sisters,”

“Thank you for my share of the favour, but I don’t particularly like your way of getting husbands,” Trixie said, mentally adding ‘or husbands at all’ to her sentence. 

The sisters caught a glimpse of Mr. Wickham on the top of the hill, sun glistening off his chesnut hair, arms full of wood. Lydia squealed. 

“How handsome is he?” she said, to nobody in particular. “How I wished he could have worn his red coat to the wedding, and have a guard of honour with their sabres drawn. But in the end, there was nobody there but my aunt and uncle and Miss Zamo.”

Jane, Kitty and Lydia kept on strolling but Trixie stopped in her tracks. Her brain felt like it was full of sand. 

“Miss Zamo?” she said, her ears vaguely ringing. “M-Miss Zamo was at your wedding?

“Oh, yes,” said Lydia offhandedly, as if it was not the most meaningful fact in the whole world. “For someone had to come with Wickham and take the place of groomsman. I’d rather it was Denny or one of our friends, but-- oh, Lord!” she suddenly giggled and covered her mouth with a gloved hand. “I’d completely forgotten! I wasn’t supposed to say a word! And I promised so faithfully! What’ll Wickham say now? It was supposed to be a secret!” she giggled frivolously and then dashed off after her husband, with Kitty following closely after. Jane stayed a second to place a hand on Trixie’s arm, then ran off to join the others. 

Trixie couldn’t move. She tried to keep her face casual, but inside her mind was shooting fireworks. Was this true? And if it was true - what on earth did it mean? Why would Miss Zamo do such a selfless favour for the man who had betrayed her so heartlessly? At that moment she knew only one thing - she had to find out the truth. 

\---

“My dear Aunt,

Thank you so much for all your hard work with the Lydia business. It was an impossible task and you performed it so flawlessly, we are forever indebted to you. Lydia let slip earlier today that Miss Zamo was at her wedding - is this true? Pray, write and let me understand how she of all people could have been there. Unless you too are bound to the secrecy Lydia thinks necessary. 

All my love, 

Trixie.”

“Dearest niece,

I must confess I found myself surprised at your letter. If you are indeed ignorant of the part that Miss Zamo played in this whole affair, let me enlighten you. Miss Zamo paid us an unexpected visit and would hear no opposition. She insisted on doing everything herself and bearing the entirety of the expense. Nothing was to be done that she did not do herself. Your uncle, instead of being of use, was forced to put up with the credit of it.

She told us that the fault was hers, and so the remedy must be too. It was through her mistaken pride, her reserve that Mr. Wickham’s character be not made known to the world.  
We of course told her she took too much on herself, but she insisted upon it. It was most bewildering - perhaps you can make more sense of it? 

Send my love to your mother and father, and we hope to see you very soon.

Mrs. Gardiner.”

\---  
Trixie put down the letter with the strangest cocktail of emotions brewing inside of her. She felt overwhelmingly guilty for ever thinking that Miss Zamo would want to extricate herself from the family and would do nothing to help. She also felt daunted at the thought of what on earth she would say if she ever saw the woman again. And she also felt a sort of warm glow in her stomach, that Miss Zamo would do something like that for her. She really must be a very, very good woman. And Trixie’s breath couldn’t help but hitch in her throat at the thought. 

\---

At the end of the week, the Wickhams were off again. Mrs. Mattel was almost inconsolable at the prospect of having to let her favourite daughter go. 

“Oh, my darling girl!” she cried, clinging on to Lydia’s arm as they made their way to the carriage outside. “When shall we see you again?”

Lydia, who was considerably less affected than her mother, shrugged and giggled.

“Lord, I’m not sure! Not these two or three years at least!”

Mrs. Mattel wailed. “Two or three years? I don’t know how I shall bear it! You will write to us, at least?”

“Oh, I shall be far too busy to write. My sisters may write to me for they’ll have nothing else to do!”

“Oh, Mr. Wickham, do take care of my girl!”

“I shall, ma’am, to the very best of my ability,” he replied with slick charm and grace. “I thank you so very much for welcoming me into the family. And you, Mr. Mattel, for your continued kindness and hospitality. My dear sisters-in-law. Now as dear to me as sisters ever could be. But, the carriage awaits! Duty and honour call me to the North! Away we must go, my dear.”

Mrs. Mattel finally released Lydia from her barrage of hugs and kisses, and they ascended grandly into the carriage. Mrs. Mattel and Kitty stood waving to the carriage until it was a tiny speck in the distance and all that was left of Mr. and Mrs. Wickham were the clouds of residual dust blown into the air by the carriage’s wheels. 

\---

Life was really quite cheerful after that. It was the beginning of July and the days were long and sunny. Mary played the pianoforte, Kitty made bonnets, Jane tended the flowers in the garden and Trixie spent hours walking the fields. It truly was indescribably beautiful up there. Above all else, it gave her time to think. 

One warm afternoon in mid-July Trixie returned, windswept, from a walk and discovered the house to be buzzing louder than the honeybees in the fields. Excitement seemed to vibrate through the walls and spill out of the windows: Trixie couldn’t imagine what on earth had happened to provoke this. 

She went straight through to the drawing room, not even pausing to take off her bonnet in the hall, and found her sisters and mother pacing around the room. Glancing at Jane, she noticed tears sparkling in her wide blue eyes. She was bewildered, and more than a little concerned. 

“What’s happened, Mama?” she asked, her voice wavering and frightened. 

“Oh, my dear! My dear! You will never guess what has happened!” Mrs. Mattel bounced up to her and snatched the bonnet from her hands. “Jane will tell you-- tell her, Jane!”

Jane sat down and held a shaking hand to her forehead. 

“Mr… Mr. Bingley has returned to Netherfield,” she whispered, and Trixie felt a bubble grow and burst inside her mind. 

“Yes!” crowed Mrs. Mattel, blissfully unaware of her daughter’s turmoil. “He is returned, and the whole village is talking about it!”

Trixie managed to gasp and laugh at the same time. 

“Has the whole party returned?” 

“Indeed they have! His sister and his friends and all his servants - they’re having a hunting party, and will stay at least until the winter!”

“Any friends in particular?” some idiot’s voice blurted out of Trixie’s mouth before she could stop it. She bit her tongue hard after saying it, and Jane gave her an odd little look. 

“How on earth should I know that, child?” Mrs. Mattel’s squawking voice faded into the background as Trixie gestured to Jane that they meet outside. They swiftly left the room to talk, and Mrs. Mattel was in such a state of ecstasy she didn’t even notice they’d gone. 

They made their way into the bright sunlight outside, sitting in their special spot under the willow tree where they always sat to talk. 

“How do you feel, my darling?” Trixie asked, knowing the news would affect Jane far more than it would affect her. Jane opened her mouth as if to say something, then smiled and shook her head. 

“I’m fine,” she said simply. “This news doesn’t concern me. We might see each other at a ball or a function, but apart from that it’s been made obvious that he and I will never be close. And that’s fine! But I do have to admit I’m glad he didn’t bring any ladies. I’m not afraid for myself but… I do fear other people’s remarks.”

“Then I shall venture none. However sorely I am tempted…” Trixie said, and she and Jane giggled a little. “After all, it is hard that the poor man can’t come to a house he has legally rented without raising speculation,”

“That is just what I think.” said Jane, with an air of finality. The two sat in silence for a moment until Jane saw Trixie’s smirk out of the corner of her eye. 

“Stop it, Trixie,” she said mischievously, and Trixie burst into peals of screamed laughter. 

“Oh, I can’t help it, Jane,” she said, wiping her eyes. 

“And what about you?” asked Jane. “I noticed your eagerness to know if a certain friend was coming too…”

Trixie’s laughter sobered.

“I don’t know. I’m... confused. She makes me feel so…” she paused, searching for the one word that would encapsulate everything she felt towards Miss Zamo - the mad, beautiful, kind, smart, crazy woman who had tangled herself into Trixie’s life. She sighed. 

“I don’t know what she makes me feel. But I doubt she even came. And that, I suppose, is the end of that.”

\---

After all this, the one thing Trixie craved was a walk in the fields. The next day dawned with a crisp blue sky and bright, sparkling sunshine. Trixie left before breakfast, itching to be on her own. She walked for hours, with no sense of time, letting the haziness and breeze wash away her worries. On her way back, she saw a small throng of wildflowers on the wayside, and some childish whimsy made her walk over, and sniff them all with delight. She plucked jasmine and honeysuckle and made a little crown, fashioning it with nimble fingers. Once it was placed on her hair, she felt more relaxed than she had in a long while.

When she got back to the house, she walked blindly into the drawing room, thinking she’d had enough surprises for the time being. Nothing could encapsulate her surprise when she saw two people sitting amongst her sisters she never expected to see. Mr. Bingley, and Miss Zamo. 

“Uh…” she said stupidly. 

“Miss Mattel!” cried Mr. Bingley cheerfully. “What a pleasure! It has been far too long! When was it we last saw each other - it must have been at Zamo’s house, when we had dinner, back in May,” 

Trixie at last allowed her eyes to be drawn to Miss Zamo. Brown eyes connected with blue, and a shiver went down her spine.

“You never told me you saw Mr. Bingley in the Lake District,” Jane said.  
“I forgot.” Trixie replied dumbly, her eyes still fixated on Miss Zamo. 

“Well, so much has changed since you went away. Miss Lucas is married now, and one of my own daughters! I expect you read that in the papers,” cried Mrs. Mattel.

“Yes, indeed we did.”

“But they did not put it in properly! They only said that Lydia Mattel was to marry a Mr. Wickham, without a single word of where she lived or what her father did or anything! And now they are gone to Newcastle and there they are to stay. You may have heard he’s gone into the regulars. Thank goodness he has some friends.”  
She said the last sentence very pointedly while staring at Miss Zamo, and it made Trixie a little confused. She suddenly realised that to all intents and purposes, Miss Zamo was the snobbish, proud villain in her mother’s eyes. It seemed so strange that the whole village viewed her with such disgust: it had been so long since she’d thought of the other woman in that way. 

It was so awkward that her mother was so outwardly showing her hatred for Miss Zamo that Trixie felt she had to say something to break the terrible silence. 

“Do you intend to stay in Hertfordshire long?” she asked, the first thing that came into her head. 

“Our plans are not yet firmly settled, but I hope we shall stay some weeks. I hope very much we shall stay a long while,” he replied, his eyes flitting to Jane. 

“Well, you’re welcome to Longbourne any time you fancy. We shall all be very glad to see you.” Mrs. Mattel said pleasantly, then her face soured. “I suppose you may bring your friends. If you must.” 

Miss Zamo blushed, so lightly that Trixie wasn’t sure anyone else saw it apart from her. She quickly stood up and went to stand by the window to hide her face, and Trixie was so agonised that she almost - but not quite - blurted out the whole truth about Mr. Wickham and Miss Zamo. 

“I’m afraid I must go,” Miss Zamo said, so suddenly that everyone turned to look at her. “I have… urgent business in town. I must go.”

“Very well, Miss Zamo,” Mrs. Mattel said poisonously. “Thank you very much for coming round.” 

Each sister stood up in turn and bowed to her. Trixie’s eyes lingered a little longer than was usual, but apart from that they had so little contact Trixie couldn’t help feeling disappointed. She’d spent so long tormented by thoughts of the woman, and this stiff interaction could hardly be called a satisfactory remedy. She consoled herself with the thought that she would most probably be able to see her, to talk to her again, and watched her leave in a flurry of swirling coats and tousled blonde hair. 

Everyone sat back down again, a trifle awkwardly, and Mr. Bingley seemed to fidget and twitch with nerves. He rubbed his hands together in a sort of anxious ritual, and his knee jerked up and down in a way that Trixie supposed was quite subconscious. 

“Kitty!” Mrs. Mattel squawked suddenly, making everyone jump. “I need to talk to you about… about something. In the kitchen. And you too, Mary!” she rushed up, taking her two youngest daughters by the wrists and taking them away, the feeble protests and questions from the girls falling on ears determined to be deaf. As she closed the door, she gave both Trixie and Jane a bewildering, and rather frightening, wink. 

Trixie swallowed back a laugh. She really did love her mother. After a few moments of the three of them sitting in stunned silence, the only sounds the crackle of the fire and the never-ending tick of the mantlepiece clock, the housekeeper Hill knocked politely on the door. 

“Begging your pardon, Miss Beatrice, but you’re needed in the kitchen.”

Trixie rather wished she could stay, but was thrilled with the idea of Jane and Mr. Bingley alone in the room together. She obediently bobbed out, only to find her mother and two younger sisters listening intently through the keyhole. 

“Mama…” she said, bemused, and Mrs. Mattel shushed her ferociously. 

“Quiet, child! I’m trying to listen!”

Trixie’s moral compass spun feebly for a second, trying to warn her against eavesdropping on such a personal conversation. It failed miserably. She crouched by the door, nudging against the three other women for a good place at the keyhole, and tried to decipher the murmurs from the other side of the door. 

She so desperately wanted to be in there, but every time she tried to open the door and sneak in, Mrs. Mattel held her firmly by the back of the dress. Eventually she wriggled out of her mother’s grasp and successfully turned the doorknob, bursting into the room in a rather more dramatic fashion than she intended: Jane and Bingley were standing (closer to each other than casual friends stand) together by the fireplace, and Trixie’s intrusion seemed to burst them out of a sort of bubble. 

“Oh! I’m so sorry…” Trixie started, and Bingley smiled cheerfully and waved away her apologies. 

“Don’t worry, Trixie! I should leave anyway. Thank you so very much for having me over, and I shall see you all again very soon. Very soon,” he said, with a last meaningful look at Jane, and swept out of the house. 

Trixie waited until she could no longer see his horse in the driveway, then turned to her sister with a burning curiosity. 

“Well…?”

Jane stood immobile for a second, then seemed to explode with pure, unraptured, joy.

“Oh, Trixie!” she gasped, and Trixie folded her in her arms, brimming with pride. 

“He loves me, Trixie! He always did! He could never believe it when people told him I did not love him as well. Oh, it is too much! I am so happy! I must go and tell Mama. Oh, Trixie! It feels so much as if this is some brilliant dream, and I am to wake up any second. Oh, I can scarcely believe it’s true!”

“I can,” said Trixie, beaming from ear to ear. “I can see in him that he’s always loved you. You light him up, Jane! Oh, you must go to our parents and tell them. How glad they shall be!”

‘Glad’ turned out to be an understatement, in Mrs. Mattel’s case. She let out such a great cry of “we are saved!” that all the servants rushed in to see if she was taken ill. Mr. Mattel was a little less dramatic, he simply gave Jane a very large hug, but his eyes crinkled when he smiled, in the way that they only ever did when he was very, very happy about something. 

“Congratulations, my dear girl. There never has been a woman so deserving. I do believe you shall be very happy together. You’re both of you so complying that nothing will ever be agreed on, so easy that every servant shall cheat you, and so generous that you shall exceed your income.” he joked, and Jane giggled, happy tears sparkling in her eyes. 

“Exceed their income? Don’t you know he has five thousand a year!” crowed Mrs. Mattel, clasping Jane tight to her body. “Oh, I must go to the village and tell everyone I know! Our Jane, engaged!”

She left for Meryton in a bumble of high spirits, chattering away merrily to herself about husbands and marriage and five thousand a year. Mr. Mattel smiled fondly at her, then tucked himself back away in his office. Mary and Kitty slunk off. Only Jane and Trixie were left standing in the living room, with Trixie feeling her happiness ebbing away slightly. She tried to hide it, but Jane noticed.

“Oh, Trix. I wish there were such a woman for you. I know you’ll share my happiness one day.”

“If you were to give me forty such women, I could never be as happy as you. Until I have your goodness I can never have your happiness. Well, only time will tell. If I am very, very lucky, I might find out that Mr. Collins has a sister.”

The two of them exploded into laughter, and it wasn’t until that night that Trixie remembered she was still wearing her slightly wilted flower crown. Little did she know that one woman across town would go to sleep that night, dreaming sadly of jasmine and honeysuckle. 

\---

A calm peace descended over Longbourne. Everything seemed, finally, to have fallen into place. They no longer had worries about who would take care of them once Mr. Mattel died, they no longer had fears that Lydia’s elopement had poisoned the family name forever. They no longer sat up late at night, feverishly counting pennies and wondering how much longer they could keep the house for. Jane had saved them all, and she seemed all the happier for it. 

Indeed, nothing out of the ordinary happened for nearly a whole week after Jane’s engagement. Kitty was wondering across the front lawns, when she caught sight of an enormous black carriage speeding across the driveway like an omen of death itself. She dashed inside.

“Mama, Trixie!” she cried, bursting into the living room where they both sat sewing. “Look at the carriage outside! It’s simply gigantic!”

Trixie and her mother rushed to the window to see why on earth a huge carriage would be on their doorstep, and Trixie’s stomach sank a little as she recognised it. Surely it couldn’t be… why would she ever come here… it couldn’t possibly be--

“BEATRICE MATTEL!” a voice screeched from the hall. Mrs. Mattel and Kitty’s eyes swiveled towards Trixie, and her face flushed a deep, dark red. She knew that voice. And she knew it could only mean bad. 

Hill knocked timidly at the living room door. “If you please, ma’am… Lady Catherine de Bourgh…”

The formidable presence of Lady Catherine appeared in the doorway, her scowl visible from a mile away, her body seething with rage. Trixie felt a sense of strange calm, and decided to keep the upper hand, instead of getting angry and provoking her. 

“Good afternoon, Lady Catherine,” she said pleasantly. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

Lady Catherine’s eyes turned to steely grey with fury, her pupils two cold pinpricks staring her down. 

“This is no such pleasure. I would be grateful if we could speak in the garden. Immediately!”  
With no other words, she turned on her heel and marched out into the garden. With a puzzled look at her mother, Trixie had no choice but to mutely follow her. 

Lady Catherine strode across the garden until she reached a small scrub of trees where it was sure they couldn’t be heard from the house, then turned round and faced Trixie. 

“You can be at no loss to understand the reason for my journey here today, Miss Mattel.” she spat. 

“Indeed, you are mistaken, madam. I am quite unable to account for the honour of having you here.”

“Miss Mattel. You ought to know I am not to be trifled with. But however insincere you choose to be, you shall not find me being so. A report of an alarming nature reached me two days ago. I was told, not only that your sister was to be most advantageously married, but that you - Miss Beatrice Mattel - would be soon after united with my own niece, Miss Zamolodchikova!”

Trixie’s stomach fluttered a little. Where on earth had this come from? Two pink spots appeared on her cheeks, and she ducked her head a little. 

“Though I know it to be the most scandalous falsehood, I instantly resolved on setting off to this place to make my sentiments known to you.”

“If you believed it to be impossible, I wonder why you took the trouble of coming so far! What would your Ladyship propose by it?”

“At once to have such a ridiculous report universally contradicted!”

“Your coming to Longbourne will be taken as a conformation of it, if indeed such a report exists.”

“This is unbelievable! I insist upon being satisfied! Miss Mattel, has my niece made you an offer of marriage?”

“I thought your Ladyship declared it to be impossible?”

“It ought to be so! But your arts and allurements may have made her forget what she owes to herself, and to her family. You may have drawn her in!”

“If I had, I would be the last person to confess it!”

“Miss Mattel, do you know who I am? I am almost the nearest relation she has, and I am entitled to know all of her concerns!”

“But you are not entitled to know mine.”

“Let me be rightly understood.” Lady Catherine barked. “This match, to which you have the presumption to aspire, can never take place. Miss Zamolodchikova is engaged to my son. Now, what do you say to that?”

“Only that if this is in fact you, you have no reason to suppose she would make an offer to me.”

“Their relation is of a... peculiar kind. They have been planned to be together since infancy. Her mother wished it as well as I, and I do not care for some presumptuous little girl to cause havoc in my carefully laid plans! Your alliance would be a disgrace! Your name would never even be mentioned by us!”

“A terrible punishment, I’m sure.”

Lady Catherine’s eyes flashed with fury. “Obstinate, headstrong girl! I am ashamed of you. I am not in the habit of being insulted!”

“That would make your Ladyship’s situation at present more pitiable, but it will have no effect on me.”

“I will not be interrupted! If you were sensible of your own good, you would not wish to quit the sphere in which you were brought up!”

Trixie, quite frankly, had had enough. She wasn’t playing games with this woman anymore: Lady Catherine had succeeded in her apparent goal of making Trixie as angry as possible.

“Lady Catherine.” she snapped impatiently, and the woman’s eyes flew open in surprise. “In marrying your niece I would not be quitting the sphere. She is a gentlewoman, I am a gentleman’s daughter. There is quite clearly a connection, so far we are equal.”

“But who is your mother? Who are your uncles and aunts? Do not imagine me ignorant of their condition!”

“Whatever my ‘condition’ may be, if your niece does not object to them, they can be nothing to you. “

“Tell me once and for all!” roared Lady Catherine. “Are you engaged to her?”

Trixie swallowed hard. 

“I am not.”

Lady Catherine closed her eyes and sighed. 

“And,” she continued, a little more calmly. “Will you promise me that you shall never enter into such an engagement?”

Trixie was done. “I will make no promise of the kind. And I must beg you not to pester me any more on the subject.”

She turned smartly on her heel and walked away, leaving the woman gasping like a fish out of water. 

“How can you be engaged to her when she is already engaged? To my--”

“Yes, your son, I know. But you do earnestly believe she will enter into this marriage, you cannot know her very well. You cannot know her at all if you are clueless to the fact that she fucks women!”

This had completely the effect Trixie desired. Lady Catherine’s bony face turned purple and swelled up like a bullfrog, she looked ready to explode.  
“Come back here at once! Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?!”

She called after Trixie, shrieking that her family was doomed, that she could have her locked up, but Trixie simply walked away, smarting with satisfaction. 

\---

Trixie couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned in bed, with Jane slumbering peacefully by her side. She heard the church bells strike in every fifteen minutes, ticking away every single hour: midnight, one, two, three o’clock, and each time they chimed she was no closer to the answer she was searching for. She watched the candle by her bedside burn down slowly, its flame flickering a little pathetically, until she took pity on it and blew it out. 

At four in the morning, the first birds awoke. They chirruped and chattered away cheerfully, blissfully unaware of the confusing puzzles inside Trixie’s head. What did she want? Did she just accidentally commit herself to a woman she still wasn’t quite sure about? She was kind, that couldn’t be denied, but could Trixie spend her life with this woman? They still barely knew each other. 

She sat up in bed, running a hand through her messy hair. Attempting to sleep was pointless. She draped a shawl around her shoulders, slid her feet into boots, and made her way to those fields she loved so much. The fields would provide clarity, she decided, or at least they would cleanse her of her worries and leave her mind pleasantly blank. 

She’d never been out this early. A mist rose from the damp grass, and the whole world seemed hushed and magical. The sky blushed a burnt orange, and every exhale crystallised into tiny puffs of haze. She was right, this did calm her. She turned round to look at the sunrise, but what she saw made her heart stop beating. 

A figure was walking out across the fields. She knew who it was before she could even see their features, and without knowing what she was doing she spoke her name:

“Katya.”

It sounded so loud amongst the birdsong and gentle rustle of the trees. Katya turned to see who had spoken, and froze when she saw Trixie. She walked towards her, and Trixie trembled a little, though she told herself it was just the cold. Katya was wearing a linen shirt, carelessly unbuttoned a little, and her billowing coat that flapped in the breeze. 

“Trixie,” Katya said, when they were close. “What…”

“I couldn’t sleep.” she said simply, transfixed by the woman in front of her. The puzzles in her mind were becoming less confusing by the second. 

“Nor could I,” Katya replied, mist clouding from her red lips, turned blue in the early morning light. “My aunt…”

“Yes,” Trixie said, before Katya could say anything else. “She saw me yesterday.”

“How could I ever… how could I ever make amends for what she said to you?”

“After everything you’ve done for Lydia? And, I suspect, for Jane? It is I who should be making amends.”

Katya’s eyes were glassy and shined almost silver in the crisp morning. Trixie couldn’t stop staring at her. 

“You must know. Surely you must know it was all for you.”

Trixie’s hair drifted off her face in the breeze. She swallowed hard, not daring to breathe, unable to move her eyes from Katya’s.

“You are too generous to trifle with me. I believe you spoke with my aunt yesterday and it has taught me to hope… I never dared hope before…”

She swallowed hard. 

“If your feelings are still what they were last March, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are still unchanged, but one word from you would silence me on the subject forever.”

Trixie’s lips twitched into the ghost of a smile. Katya stepped closer. 

“If, however, your feelings have changed… I would have to tell you that you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love… I love… I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.”

The rising sun warmed her tousled hair; it shone auburn in its rays. Trixie’s eyes flickered over her face, and she stepped closer. Her mind was clear now, it seemed almost strange that she had ever been confused at all. She took Katya’s hand in hers. And pressed it to her frozen lips. 

“Your hands are cold,” she whispered. Katya put her hand on Trixie’s cheek, something she had longed to do ever since that awful day in the rain, and pulled her close.

Katya’s lips were soft, and warm, and Trixie lived and died a thousand times while they kissed. She melted into the other woman, felt her smile against her lips. Her frozen hands, fingers curled, rested lightly on Katya’s chest. Katya pulled back too soon, taking Trixie by surprise, and she whined a little and scrabbled for more. Katya laughed quietly, and suddenly swept Trixie up in her arms, resting their foreheads against each other and silently saying everything they needed to say. The world stopped existing for a while.

\---

“Engaged to Miss Zamo?! No, it can’t be! This is impossible!

Jane sat in bed. Her hair still tangled from sleep, but her eyes were awake and alert. It was now nine in the morning, and Trixie had come from that eventful meeting in the fields (after some essential... ‘talks’ with Katya) to tell the only person she trusted fully in the whole world - Jane. 

“This is a bad beginning,” she joked. “If you don’t believe me I’m sure no one else will. Indeed I am in earnest. She still loves me. And we are engaged!”

She stretched out like a cat on the bed. Jane stroked her hair as it tumbled over the pillow. 

“I’m sorry, my darling. I was merely taken by surprise,”

Trixie waved away her apology. Nothing could harm her now, she was riding on a wave of elation.

“I just know how much you dislike her!”

“No, it’s all forgotten!” said Trixie, yawning. “Perhaps I didn’t always love her as I do now, but in cases such as these a good memory is unpardonable.”

“Trixie, be serious for a moment,” said Jane, leaning over Trixie, her eyes wide and shining like an owl’s. “How long have you loved her?”

Trixie considered, wriggling against the bed. “It’s been coming on so gradually, I hardly know. But I believe,” she said, grinning, “I must date it to when I first saw her beautiful grounds at Pemberley.”

The two of them exploded into peals of laughter, and Jane clasped her close. 

“I’m glad for you,” she whispered. “I know you, and I know you’re above being tempted by money or houses or good looks. If you love her, you must really, truly love her. And with that I must always be glad for you.”

\---

Trixie tried to put it from her mind for the next few days. She and Katya had arranged that Katya would call on Mr. Mattel and ask his permission for his daughters’ hand, and until then all Trixie could do was wait. She developed a habit of drifting off dreamily, with a knowing smile on her face, only snapping back to reality when someone shook her shoulder. 

She was so happy, the happiest she’d ever been, but it would be untrue to say there was no sadness. Every time her sisters squabbled at the breakfast table or burst into her room without knocking, it was a melancholy thought that soon she’d be living without these tiny annoyances she hated and loved so much. And her father - how could she ever live without her father? She resolved she must have them all over at least twice a week every single week. Though, as they all sat eating lunch on a sunny day in July, she was sure she would soon regret that decision. 

“Mary, move your elbows, you’re squashing me!”

“I can’t help it. I must finish reading this book and if you didn’t lollop around there’d be plenty of space.”

“I do not lollop! Mama, tell her I don’t lollop!”

“Kitty--”

A sharp knock at the door interrupted the argument, and Hill bobbed into the room. 

“Miss Zam… Zama… Zamolodchikova is here, ma’am,”

Trixie’s stomach lurched: this was it. She was going to ask Mr. Mattel’s permission. Jane saw Trixie’s hand shake, and covered them with her own warm hands. Kitty and Mrs. Mattel exchanged disgusted glances. 

“Good afternoon,” Katya said, stiffly holding her top hat. “I’m so sorry to interrupt while you’re having lunch,”

“Not at all, madam,” said Mrs Mattel coldly. “You’re most welcome.”

“I shan’t intrude for long. Mr. Mattel, I wonder, may I see you in your study?”

“Uh… of course!” said Mr. Mattel, bewildered. The second the two of them left the room, all five women shot out of their seats to listen at the keyhole, though May and Kitty were squabbling and jostling so much Trixie could hardly hear a word. Eventually, after what seemed like a lifetime to Trixie, the door opened.

Katya left, beaming. Trixie’s heart fluttered. They exchanged a small smile, the kind that says a thousand different things, and Katya hopped up on her horse with a spring in the step. Trixie was so distracted by watching Katya leave she didn’t notice the dark shadow of her father loom in the doorway of his study.

“Trixie,” he said. “Come in.”

Slowly, she crossed into the room and sat on the seat by the window. Firmly shutting the door, her father was silent for a moment before his torrent of questions began.

“Would you like to tell me why Miss Zamo-bloody-chikova was just in my office asking for your hand in marriage?”

“I-” Trixie began, but her father was far from finished.

“Are you out of your mind? Why on earth are you accepting her? Have you not always hated her?”

“Well-”

“Is it the money? I know she has ten thousand a year, but I surely did not think you that shallow as to marry someone just for a grand house and a fortune. And why are you so silent?”

“I was trying to say, Papa,” Trixie said, quietly but firmly, and Mr. Mattel finally quietened down. “I’m not marrying her for money. I’m not marrying her for her grand house, or her title, or ten thousand a year. I’m marrying her because I love her. She’s kind, and we understand each other. I know you don’t see it yet, but I’m asking you to trust me when I say that I love her.”

Mr. Mattel paused. He sighed. And sank heavily into a chair across from Trixie. 

“I do trust you. That’s the problem - I trust you so much. I couldn’t bear to see you marry someone who couldn’t properly make you happy. You’re so precious. I can’t give you to any ordinary person.”

Trixie smiled, and stood, and hugged him fiercely. 

“Katya is extraordinary, Papa. But even if she wasn’t, I’m not yours to give.”

He chuckled. “Well, that’s always been true. You’ve always belonged to yourself. My stubborn, headstrong girl.”

He made a strange snorting noise, and when Trixie looked down she was astonished to see he was crying. 

“Papa!” she said, tears pricking her eyes too. 

“Ach, I’m sorry,” he said, wiping his eyes on his handkerchief. “How shall I bear it when you’re gone?”

Trixie kissed his forehead. 

“I’ll never be really gone, Papa.”

\---

4th August 1813

The sun was so bright that day, it made Trixie’s eyes unfocus as she stepped from the carriage, clasping her father’s hand. As she squinted, she saw everyone there in the church, everyone in the world who was precious to her.  
Kitty, finally fulfilling her dream of being a bridesmaid, holding a small bunch of flowers and grinning ear to ear. Mary, who they’d reluctantly permitted to play the organ for the service. Mrs. Mattel, tears streaming unashamedly down her cheeks. Lydia, wearing a huge bonnet with what appeared to be a whole dead bird on top of it, and Mr. Wickham, obviously dragged here by his wife and forced to put a nice suit on. Mr. Collins and Charlotte, who gave Trixie such a look of love it made her want to burst into tears and burst out laughing at the same time. Jane, dear Jane. Standing in the front pew, with Mr. Bingley by her side, beaming so purely it radiated out of her. 

And there, at the front, was Katya. Smart, crazy Katya. Her Katya.

And Trixie suddenly realised it was true: a single woman in possession of a good fortune MUST be in want of a wife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a helpful little timeline of the events and their dates, to make things easier:
> 
> Late November 1812 - the introductory ball, Jane’s illness
> 
> Early December 1812 - (3 weeks after Jane’s illness) Mr. Collins arrives, Mr. Wickham introduction, electric dance, Bingley leaves
> 
> January 1813 - Jane goes to London, Charlotte Lucas accepts Mr. Collins
> 
> March 1813 - Trixie stays with the Collinses, 1st proposal, revealing letter
> 
> April 1813 - Trixie returns to Longbourn 
> 
> May 1813 - Trixie goes to Derbyshire and sees Pemberley, Lydia runs off
> 
> June 1813 - Lydia & Wickham marry and come back to Longbourne
> 
> July 1813 - Bingley returns and proposes to Jane, Katya returns and proposes to Tritzie
> 
> August 1813 - wedding day, y'all


End file.
